The keeper assumed now an authority which Thorpe,
breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping
for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take
things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the
two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders
of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed
to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman,
followed by his valet with the gun and the stool,
set meekly off without a word. Balder, with equal docility,
vaulted the gate, and moved away down the lane at the
bidding of the keeper. Neither of them had intervened
to mitigate the destiny of their guest, or displayed
any interest as to what was going to become of him.
Thorpe said to himself that he did not like this--and
though afterward, when he had also climbed the gate and taken
up his station under a clump of trees at the autocrat's behest,
he strove to soothe his ruffled feelings by the argument
that it was probably the absolutely correct deportment
for a shooting party, his mind remained unconvinced.
Moreover, in parting from him, the keeper had dropped
a blunt injunction about firing up or down the lane,
the tone even more than the matter of which nettled him.
To cap all, when he presently ventured to stroll about a
little from the spot on which he had been planted, he caught
a glimpse against the skyline of the distant Lord Plowden,
comfortably seated on the stool which his valet had
been carrying.
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