of Usna."

But Deirdre looked hard at Lavarcam, and scorn and laughter were in
her merry eyes.

"Then shall I have speech with Naoise, Ardan, and Ainle," she said,
and ere Lavarcam could stop her, she had flitted through the trees by
a path amongst the fern, and stood suddenly before the three men.

And the rough hinds, seeing such perfect loveliness, made very sure
that Deirdre was one of the _sidhe_[15] and stared at her with the
round eyes and gaping mouths of wondering terror.

For a moment Deirdre gazed at them. Then: "Are ye the Sons of Usna?"
she asked.

And when they stood like stocks, frightened and stupid, she lashed
them with her mockery, until the swineherd could no more, and blurted
out the whole truth to this most beautiful of all the world. Then,
very gently, like pearls from a silver string, the words fell from the
rowan-red lips of Deirdre: "I blame thee not, poor swineherd," she
said, "and that thou mayst know that I deem thee a true man, I would
fain ask thee to do one thing for me."

And when the eyes of the herd met the eyes of Deirdre, a soul was born
in him, and he knew things of which he never before had dreamed.

"If I can do one thing to please thee, that will I do," he said. "Aye,
and gladly pay for it with my life. Thenceforth my life is thine."

And Deirdre said: "I would fain see Naoise, one of the Sons of Usna."

And once more the swineherd said: "My life is thine."

Then Deirdre, seeing in his eyes a very beautiful thing, stooped and
kissed the swineherd on his weather-beaten, tanned forehead.

"Go, then," she said, "to Naoise. Tell him that I, Deirdre, dream of
him all the night and think of him all the day, and that I bid him
meet me here to-morrow an hour before the setting of the sun."

The swineherd watched her flit into the shadows of the trees, and then
went on his way, through the snowy woods, that he might pay with his
life for the kiss that Deirdre had given him.

Sorely puzzled was Lavarcam over the doings of Deirdre that day, for
Deirdre told her not a word of what had passed between her and the
swineherd. On the morrow, when she left her to go back to the court of
King Conor, she saw, as she drew near Emain Macha, where he stayed,
black wings that flapped over something that lay on the snow. At her
approach there rose three ravens, three kites, and three hoodie-crows,
and she saw that their prey was the body of the swineherd with gaping
spear-wounds all over hi