"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "Vous êtes chez vous; the ladies have gone to Paris."
It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all. It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was a good fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there. No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but instead four plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The château itself was plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of the little towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing the snug forest bulged dangerously in places.
"You will see," explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as our little party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not get along very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives us trouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged aunt was unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us from hunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot put foot in his harvest."
"I see," I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew the birds were where the harvest was still uncut.
"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would rather lose than have me hunt over," the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall see what the canaille will do, for only this morning he sent me word threatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better than have us all served with a procès-verbal for trespassing."
I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of the country-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's pace and be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a procès-verbal meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a no more tranquil state of mind himself.
"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That sacré individual will deal with me. It is I who am alone responsible," he generously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let him bulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, for what he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest."
"Eh bien! my dear friends," he called back to the others as we reached a cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to the right—half to the left!"
"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into two slowly moving companies.