e snow and showed the leaders of the hundred how to sweep
around without discovery so that they might fall on the northern
horsemen at eve.

Brian had grown into an older and grimmer man since the day he had stood
beside the bed of Owen Ruadh O'Neill, short though the time had been.
Youth was still in his face when he smiled out, but suffering had
deepened his eyes and sunk his cheeks and drawn the skin tighter over
that powerful jaw of his. When he had armed, he stood in thought for a
little, with hand on jaw in his instinctive gesture, and wakened
suddenly to find old Turlough bending the knee before him.

"Now I know of what blood you come, Yellow Brian," said the old man
softly. "I saw Hugh O'Neill, the great earl, standing even as you stand
now, on the morning when we slew the English at the Yellow Ford."

"Man, man!" exclaimed Brian in wonder; "that battle was fought fifty
years ago, and yet you say that you were there?"

"I was the earl's horse-boy, master." And Brian saw tears on the old
man's beard. "I loved him, and I was at the flight of the earls ten
years after, going with Tyr-owen to Italy, and it was these hands laid
him in his grave, master; master, have faith in me--"

Brian put down his hands to those of Turlough, his heart strangely
softened.

"He was my grandfather," he said simply, and Turlough broke down and
wept like a child.

When they left their horses and the camp behind, Brian followed
Turlough, feeling like a new man. He had lightened his heart of a great
load, and he wished that he had talked of these things with Turlough
Wolf long before this. Now he understood why the old man had offered him
service as he stood in that attitude on the battlements of O'Reilly's
castle after leaving Owen Ruadh, and he understood the love that
Turlough bore him, and the silence the old man had kept on the matter,
though it must have ever been deep in his heart to speak out.

No more words passed between them, nor did Brian tell Turlough more of
his story until long after; but of this there was no need. As they
climbed higher on the mountain they could see the hundred horsemen
filing off to the eastward; but soon these were lost sight of as
Turlough led Brian and the fifty through the valleys and deep openings,
which were drifted deep in snow, making progress slow and wearisome.

Indeed, Brian thought afterward that this hard traveling might have been
responsible for what chanced on the other side of