about eight o'clock
At about eight o'clock one evening of the early summer a group of men were seated on a grass-plot overlooking a broad river . The sun was just setting through the forest fringe directly behind them . Of this group some reclined in the short grass , others lay flat on the bank 's slope , while still others leaned against the carriages of two highly ornamented field-guns , whose embossed muzzles gaped silently at an eastern shore nearly two miles distant . The men were busy with soft-voiced talk , punctuating their remarks with low laughter of a singularly infectious character .