“No,” said a voice quite close, behind the hedge, “not many Frenchmen, thank the Lord! A few coveys of Hungarians over from the Duke's. Sir James, some pie?”
Shelton raised himself with drowsy curiosity—still half asleep—and applied his face to a gap in the high, thick osiers of the hedge. Four men were seated on camp-stools round a folding-table, on which was a pie and other things to eat. A game-cart, well-adorned with birds and hares, stood at a short distance; the tails of some dogs were seen moving humbly, and a valet opening bottles. Shelton had forgotten that it was “the first.” The host was a soldierly and freckled man; an older man sat next him, square-jawed, with an absent-looking eye and sharpened nose; next him, again, there was a bearded person whom they seemed to call the Commodore; in the fourth, to his alarm, Shelton recognised the gentleman called Mabbey. It was really no matter for surprise to meet him miles from his own place, for he was one of those who wander with a valet and two guns from the twelfth of August to the end of January, and are then supposed to go to Monte Carlo or to sleep until the twelfth of August comes again.
He was speaking.
“Did you hear what a bag we made on the twelfth, Sir James?”
“Ah! yes; what was that? Have you sold your bay horse, Glennie?”
Shelton had not decided whether or no to sneak away, when the Commodore's thick voice began:
“My man tellsh me that Mrs. Foliot—haw—has lamed her Arab. Does she mean to come out cubbing?”
Shelton observed the smile that came on all their faces. “Foliot 's paying for his good time now; what a donkey to get caught!” it seemed to say. He turned his back and shut his eyes.
“Cubbing?” replied Glennie; “hardly.”
“Never could shee anything wonderful in her looks,” went on the Commodore; “so quiet, you never knew that she was in the room. I remember sayin' to her once, 'Mrs. Lutheran, now what do you like besht in all the world?' and what do you think she answered? 'Music!' Haw!”