The valet, standing behind Thorpe, shrugged his shoulders and eloquently shook his head.
“Do you like an 'ammerless, sir?” the keeper turned to Thorpe.
To his intense humiliation, Thorpe could not make out the meaning of the query. “Oh, anything'll do for me,” he said, awkwardly smiling. “It's years since I've shot--I daresay one gun'll be quite the same as another to me.”
He felt the knowing bright eyes of the keeper taking all his measurements as a sportsman. “You'd do best with 'B,' sir, I fancy,” the functionary decided at last, and his way of saying it gave Thorpe the notion that “B” must be the weapon that was reserved for school-boys. He watched the operation of putting the gun together, and then took it, and laid it over his arm, and followed the valet out into the hall again, in dignified silence. To the keeper's remark--“Mr. Balder has its mate with him today, sir,” he gave only a restrained nod.
There were even now whole minutes to wait before Lord Plowden appeared. He came down the stairs then with the brisk, rather impatient air of a busy man whose plans are embarrassed by the unpunctuality of others. He was fully attired, hob-nailed shoes, leggings, leather coat and cap, gloves, scarf round his throat and all--and he behaved as if there was not a minute to lose. He had barely time to shake perfunctorily the hand Thorpe offered him, and utter an absent-minded “How are you this morning?”
To the valet, who hurried forward to open the outer door, bearing his master's gun and a camp-stool, he said reproachfully, “We are very late today, Barnes.” They went out, and began striding down the avenue of trees at such a pace that the keeper and his following of small boys and dogs, who joined them near the road, were forced into a trot to keep up with it.
Thorpe had fancied, somehow, that a day's shooting would afford exceptional opportunities for quiet and intimate talk with his host, but he perceived very soon that this was not to be the case. They walked together for half a mile, it is true, along a rural bye-road first and then across some fields, but the party was close at their heels, and Plowden walked so fast that conversation of any sort, save an occasional remark about the birds and the covers between him and the keeper, was impracticable. The Hon. Balder suddenly turned up in the landscape, leaning against a gate set in a hedgerow, and their course was deflected toward him, but even when they came up to him, the expedition seemed to gain nothing of a social character. The few curt words that were exchanged, as they halted here to distribute cartridges and hold brief consultation, bore exclusively upon the subject in hand.
