"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 instantly led his mind to this part of the country, being aware of the strife between O'Donnell and Nuala O'Malley. It had been a crazed notion enough, and since then she had kept as near to him as possible in the half-sane idea that she might help him.
How she had managed to do it ever remained a mystery to Brian, since his marches had been none of the slowest, but she had done so.