Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/20

12 relic of the lavish and princely splendour which scarce thirty years ago had been at its height in the King's Rest.

"Ah! dear me—dear me!" murmured the Duke, throwing himself into a fauteuil. "This is the old supper-room! To be sure—how well I remember George IV. sitting just there where yon stand. Lord! how fond he was of your father—birds of a feather! Well, well! we might be wild, wicked dogs—we were, sir; but we had witty times of it. Regency Erceldoune was a very brilliant man, though he might be a "

Erceldoune, with brief courtesy to the Duke, rang the bell impatiently to order luncheon, and turned to the other men:

"I hope your sport and our moorland air may have given yon an appetite, for Border larders were never very well stocked, you know, except when the laird made a raid; and, unhappily, there is no 'lifting,' now-a-days, to add to our stock!"

"My dear sir!" laughed Vane, dropping his glass, through which he had been glancing at the Van Tol, "half a cold grouse when one is starving is worth all the delicacies of a Carême when one is not in extremis. I am delighted to make