292 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



was returning from sliooting, and had just readied 

 tlie liousCj when a covey of hand-reared partridges, 

 which were feeding on the gravel at the portico, 

 came rmming along the road to meet my setters, 

 who might have been thirty or forty yards in 

 front of me. I neither called nor whistled, but 

 watched with extreme curiosity and deliglit the 

 upshot of this meeting. 



The setters had picked up many birds on that 

 same day, some few of them winged and runners ; 

 but now, on their return home, they met a covey 

 of birds openly confessed, and running towards 

 them face to face. 



Tlie setters at first put on a look of extreme 

 caution, and almost came to a point; they then 

 stood still, though not at a 'pointy and stared at 

 the birds, and the birds stood very affrighted and 

 stared at them ; they thus regarded each other a 

 moment or two, when the setters put on smiling 

 and good-humoured faces, wagged their sterns at 

 the covey, and looked back at me. All I said 

 was ^^ darlings.'' The setters went on; the partridges 

 on seeing tlie setters advance moved out of the 

 carriage wa}^ a few yards into the grass of the 

 park, and, without further notice, the setters pre- 



