"I knew you," she gasped out weakly, clutching at his shoulder. "I knew
you, son of Tyr-owen! You had yellow hair, but your face was the face I
once loved, the face of the great Hugh--"

She stopped abruptly, and her words were lost in a choking gasp as blood
came from her mouth. Brian swore.

"_Mile Mollaght!_ What has happened here, woman? Are you wounded?"

"Aye, those dogs of O'Donnells," she moaned feebly. Then new strength
came to her, and she peered up with another cackle. "But did I not tell
wisely, son? Have you not found Cathbarr of the Ax and the Bird Daughter
even as I foretold?"

"Yes, yes," returned Brian impatiently. "Where are you wounded, mother?
We can take you--"

"Peace, avic," she cried. "They came on me last night, and my life is
gone. You shall take vengeance for the old _calliagh_, Brian--but first
I must talk. Do you know who I am, avic--or who I was, rather?"

"How should I know that, mother?" answered Brian. "Old Turlough Wolf,
yonder, swears you are some witch--"

"Turlough!" The hag raised herself on his arm, cackling. "So the old
Wolf is still living! Do _you_ know me, Turlough? Do you remember the
sorrowful day of the earl's flight?"

Old Turlough, who had ridden closer, bent over and looked down, fear in
his face. Suddenly he straightened up again with a wild cry.

"Noreen of Breffny! By my hand, it is the earl's love!"

"Aye, the earl's love!" she gasped out, falling back. "I was his love in
truth, Yellow Brian, and he loved me above all the rest, though
another's hand closed his eyes and laid him to earth in Rome. I knew you
would come, Brian--I saw you at Drogheda, though you saw me not, and I
bade you come here into the West, and I have watched over you--"

She coughed horribly, clutching at Brian's arm. He stared down at her in
amazement, for the incredible story seemed true enough. This old hag had
been that Noreen of Breffny of whom he had heard much--the fairest maid
of the North, whom the great earl had loved to the last, though the
church had not blessed their union.

Brian's old Irish nurse had often told him of the "Breffny lily," and it
was bitter and hard to realize that this ancient hag, withered and
shrunk and done to death by the Dark Master's men, had been the fairest
maid in Ulster. She gasped out a little more of her story, and Brian
found that his wild surmises had been true; after seeing him and
recognizing him for one of the earl's house, she had ins