The night following the burial of the old sailor was passed in a very disturbed and agitated manner by Terry O’Shea: he could not sleep a wink; and when he fell into a slumber, he started and moaned, and appeared frightened and annoyed.
“What ails you?” affectionately demanded his old mother, who slept in the same room, and who was kept awake by her son’s restless and disturbed manner.
“I don’t know, mother,” said Terry; “I am so frightened and tormented with dreaming of the Boccough Ruadh, that I am almost out of my natural senses. Even at this moment I think I see him walking the room before me.”
“Holy Mary, protect us!” ejaculated the old woman. “And it is no wonder that his misforthunate soul would be star-gazing about—and to die without the priest, and a curse and a lie in his mouth!”
Terry groaned agitatedly.
“And how does he appear in your dreams?” asked the old woman.
“As he always was,” replied Terry. “But I think I see him pointing to his red nightcap, and endeavouring to pull it off with his old withered hand.”
“Umph!” said the old woman, in a knowing tone. “Ha! ha! I have it now. Are you sure that the strings of his nightcap were unloosed before he was nailed up in the coffin?”
“I don’t know,” was the reply.
“I’ll go bail they weren’t,” said the old woman; “and you know, or at any rate you ought to know, that a corpse can never rest in the grave when there is a knot or a tie upon any thing belonging to its grave-dress.”