The butler led the way, and Hector followed between his captors.
They might have been showing him to his bed-room, so calm was he:
Rob gone to fetch the chief, his imprisonment could not last!—and
for the indignity, was he not in the right!
As Mr. Palmer left the kitchen, his eye fell on Mercy.
"Go to your room," he said angrily, and turned from her.
She obeyed in silence, consoling herself that from her window she could see the arrival of the chief. Nor had she watched long when she saw him coming along the road with Rob. At the gate she lost sight of them. Presently she heard voices in the hall, and crept down the stair far enough to hear.
"I could commit you for a breach of the peace, Mr. Palmer," she heard the chief say. "You ought to have brought the man to me. As a magistrate I order his release. But I give my word he shall be forthcoming when legally required."
"Your word is no bail. The man was taken poaching; I have him, and I will keep him."
"Let me see him then, that I may learn from himself where he shot the deer."
"He shall go before Mr. Brander."
"Then I beg you will take him at once. I will go with him. But listen a moment, Mr. Palmer. When this same man, my keeper, took your guest poaching on my ground, I let Mr. Sercombe go. I could have committed him as you would commit Hector. I ask you in return to let Hector go. Being deaf and dumb, and the hills the joy of his life, confinement will be terrible to him."
"I will do nothing of the kind. You could never have committed a gentleman for a mistake. This is quite a different thing!"