Patrick sent the children out of the way of the horses’ feet, while he explained how it happened that his barn was stabling a deer.
Then the whipper-in quieted his hounds, and the ladies and gentlemen looked at bashful Kathleen, who had quite lost her voice in the midst of so much excitement. But when she was offered the pound that Tim Keefe had expected to receive, she shook her head.
“Tell them I want the deer to go free,” she whispered to Patrick.
How everyone laughed at the idea! But in the end they agreed to it, telling her that she might open the barn door whenever she pleased. Then they all went away down the boreen, “as goodly a cavalcade as ever rode on Irish soil,” Bee said.
As for Patrick, in one breath he laughed at Kathleen’s wit and courage, and in the next he praised her tender heart. “You’re a good lass,” he said, “and you’ve earned a good dinner anyway. Come into the house and we’ll see what Bee has been baking the morn. Then, after the hounds are well out of the way, we’ll open the barn door and see the deer take himself off to the woods.”
That afternoon, when they were all working in the bog, Kathleen heard Patrick telling Danny and Uncle Barney the story of her deer hunt. “There was Tim Keefe, on his old nag, with his pipe in his mouth,” he said, “thinking he was the grand whipper-in, and would get the pound for himself.”
“It’s a fine day that sees Tim Keefe outwitted for once,” exclaimed Uncle Barney, slapping his knee with his hand.
Kathleen heard his words and turned to him quickly. “You said that you would give a pound to hear that Tim Keefe had been outwitted,” she said.
Uncle Barney laughed till his sides shook. “Good for you! Good for you!” he said, and actually took out the money and gave it to her.
She looked at it doubtfully, and he laughed again. “You earned it fair, and ’twas worth it,” he told her.