eleven o'clock
There were rectangles of apple-green clover , canary-yellow squares of mustard , green pastures of ochre stubble , rich green strips of beets , and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed . Time after time we were obliged to pass around companies of partridges that had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt . It was exasperating , for , from the beginning of the shoot , every bird seemed to know where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the _ messieurs _ in the yellow dogskin gloves . By eleven o'clock there were barely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been a hundred . At the second cross road , the right and left party convened . It was what Le Bour had been waiting for . A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which he had hidden himself , and came glowering toward us .