'Head them off if ye can, Mike,' yelled the huntsman, galloping up. ''Tis an auld fox!'
'It was not, then! Didn't I see him cross the path below, an' he a cub?'
'Don't stand there arguin', ye fool! Nip round to the gate above, for she's bet, an' we've none too many in this country.'
They galloped away, and the 'yowl-yowl' of the pack died away over the moor.
Redpad lay among the ivy until the morning mists cleared away; and the croon of the woodpigeons was the only sound which broke the stillness. Then he leaped from his sanctuary and crept down the hill. He sought for his mother high and low, through thickets and rocks, but he could not find her; and when the autumn moon rose he wandered to and fro and yelped for her, but she never came back again to Knockdane.
Nevertheless woodland grief is as short-lived as it is poignant, and before September had given place to October, Redpad hunted in Knockdane and robbed the Ballygallon hen-roosts contentedly alone.
