“What do they hunt?” she asked.
“Sometimes they hunt a deer; and sometimes it’s foxes or rabbits they are after,” he replied.
“If they are hunting a deer I hope they won’t catch it,” Kathleen said earnestly.
But when the sound of the hunting-horn rang merrily across the bog, from the direction of Uncle Barney’s house in Killaraght, she was full of excitement over the chase.
“Listen!” she cried, standing with outstretched arms to catch the brick of turf Danny was ready to throw to her; “listen, there’s the horn now! It sounds so sweet I’d almost think it was the fairies.”
Danny waited until they heard the baying of the hounds and the halloo of the riders, and then he went on with his work.
“They may kill harmless animals if they like; but I’d rather be able to hit your hands with a brick of turf,” he said, suiting the action to the word, “than to hit a handsome deer with a bullet.”
Kathleen’s thoughts were busy with the hunters for a long time and she asked her brother endless questions about them,—Where did they live? What did they do with the deer? How did the horses go over the stone walls and fences? Why did the riders wear scarlet coats?
“How many hunters are there?” she asked at last.
“Oh, fifteen or more,” Danny answered carelessly. “But if they needed thirty men to catch one poor deer, they could find them easily. There’s the surgeon from the hospital in Boyle, for one. Bee says he is over here to-day for the hunting.”