For was not Decca the bride of Largnen, and the good Saint had
he not come, and the chime of the Christ-bell was it not heard in the
land?
But aged and feeble were the children of Lir. Wrinkled were their once
fair faces, and bent their little white bodies.
At the sight Largnen, affrighted, fled from the church, and the good Kemoc
cried aloud, 'Woe to thee, O King!'
Then did the children of Lir turn toward the Saint, and thus Finola spake:
'Baptize us now, we pray thee, for death is nigh. Heavy with sorrow are
our hearts that we must part from thee, thou holy one, and that in
loneliness must thy days on earth be spent. But such is the will of the
High God. Here let our graves be digged, and here bury our four bodies,
Conn standing at my right side, Fiacra at my left, and Aed before my face,
for thus did I shelter my dear brothers for thrice three hundred years
'neath wing and breast.'
Then did the good Kemoc baptize the children of Lir, and thereafter the
Saint looked up, and lo! he saw a vision of four lovely children with
silvery wings, and faces radiant as the sun; and as he gazed they floated
ever upward, until they were lost in a mist of blue. Then was the good
Kemoc glad, for he knew that they had gone to Heaven.
But, when he looked downward, four worn bodies lay at the church door, and
Kemoc wept sore.
And the Saint ordered a wide grave to be digged close by the little
church, and there were the children of Lir buried, Conn standing at
Finola's right hand, and Fiacra at her left, and before her face her twin
brother Aed.
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