SHOOTING PIED PHEASANTS. 395 



tropliy in his entertainer's lap. Had the thorns and 

 entanglement of the cover permitted him to look up, 

 he would have seen that he was addressing a livid 

 statue, and that he had better have run home to the 

 precincts of his own altar than approach his noble 

 friend. He was soon brought to a true insight of 

 the state of things by hearing the livid statue thus 

 apostrophise his hearers. " Here ! come here, all of 

 you ; somebody take this man's gun from him, and, 

 sir, I — I — I, sir — go home." 



A circumstance very similar to this happened to 

 my friend Mr. William Knyvet, of whose exploits I 

 have previously made mention. Pie had a day's 

 shooting, during my father's time, given him at 

 Cranford; luckily for him he went out alone, at- 

 tended by the keeper William Booth. No caution 

 Avas given him as to what he was to shoot at, and 

 while the keeper was driving a small clump of cover 

 he heard a pheasant rise, and the keeper call out 

 "pie;" however, he took a shot at tlie bird as it 

 came over his head, and killed it. Out came the 

 keeper black in the face with indignation. " Good 

 God, sir," exclaimed the man, " what are you about ? 

 Didn't you hear me call out 'pie?' and why the 

 devil, sir, did you dare to shoot? My lord never allows 

 a pied pheasant to be shot at." " Pie," said Mr. Wil- 

 liam Knyvet, taking up the bird, whose under plumage 

 was of the usual colour, the Avhite feathers being on 

 his back and tail; "pie, — why, you might just as 

 well have called out ' pudding ' for all the information 

 it conveyed to me ; I did not know you had a pied 

 pheasant in the country." 



I have heard it said of a gentleman who keeps a 

 splendid pack of fox-hounds, that one day, as he rode 



