The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30, January 23, 1841Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 30, January 23, 1841
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
After a short walk, Terry arrived at the precincts of the churchyard.
It was a lovely summer’s night, the full moon shining gloriously, and
myriads of pretty stars blinking and twinkling in the blue expanse, but
all their native lustre was drowned in the borrowed splendour of the
Queen of Heaven. Terry stood a moment to reconnoitre, and, resting on his
spade, looked around with an anxious gaze. He could discover nothing; all
was silent as the departed beneath his feet, except the murmuring of the
river’s surges in the rear, or the barking of some village cur-dog in the
hazy distance. He advanced to the grave of the Boccough, and in a few
minutes the ghastly moonbeams shone full on the pale grim features of the
dead. He snatched the nightcap quickly from the bald head of the corpse,
put it in his pocket, and, notwithstanding the awe and superhuman terror
under which he laboured, he chuckled with delight as he remarked the
“_dead_ weight” of the Boccough’s head-gear. He then closed the coffin,
and as he proceeded to cover it, the clay and stones fell on it with an
appalling and unearthly sound. The grave now covered up, the intrepid
fellow again shouldered his spade, and sought the river’s margin, and as
he strode hurriedly along its banks in the direction of his home, the
splash of the otter and the diving of the water-hen more than once broke
the thread of his lonely musings.
Terry was soon at his mother’s side, who since his departure had been on
her knees, praying for his safe return. The nightcap was ripped up, and
lo! three hundred golden guineas were the reward of Terry’s churchyard
adventure! Stitched carefully in every part of the huge nightcap, the
gold lay secure, so as not to attract the notice of any one, or cause the
least suspicion of its proximity to the old man’s pericranium.
Terry and his mother were in ecstacies. Farms were already purchased
in ideality, cattle bought, houses built, and even Terry began in his
mind to make preparations for his wedding with Onny Kinshellagh, a rich
farmer’s daughter of the neighbourhood, for whom he had breathed many a
hopeless sigh, and who, in addition to her beauty, was possessed of fifty
pounds in hard gold, a couple of good yearlings, and a feather-bed as
broad as the “nine acres.”
The mother and son retired to bed, as happy as the certain possession
of wealth, and the almost as certain expectations of honour and
distinction, could make them. After a long time spent in constructing and
condemning schemes for the future, Terry fell asleep. He had not slept
long, however, when he started up with a loud scream, crying out, “the
Boccough! the Boccough!” “Och, weary’s on him for a Boccough!” exclaimed
the mother; “is he coming for the nightcap and the goold?”
“Oh, no,” said Terry, calmly; “but I was again dreaming of him, and I was
frightened.”
“What did you dream to-night?” asked the old woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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