I hurried after the others, and when I caught up with them, broke my gun to eject the lethal cartridge and the one that had not been fired, but my host said: "Oh, I wouldn't do that; we might meet a grouse on the way back. Jenkins," he said, turning to the keeper, "have you seen any hereabouts?" "There was a brace, Sir William, in the stubble-field this morning. They may be around now, we might take a look." "I think, then," said Sir William, "we will cut through the Green Lane, and see what there is in that field." We had hardly entered the lane when a bird rose from behind a bush with a whirr that startled me, but I fired almost without taking aim, and brought it down. There was an awful silence, and then Sir William said, in a strained voice: "I hardly know what we had better do. Still, as it is done, Jenkins, you had better send it up to the Hall." "Excuse me, Sir William," said Jenkins, "but there would be a lot of talk in the servants' hall, and I think it would be better if I took it home with me and burned the feathers, and no one but ourselves need be any the wiser. Thank God, the boy is back there in the wood! And I don't suppose the gentleman will talk." After a long pause my host replied, with a sigh, that he supposed that would be best. Perhaps you will be asking, what was the trouble? I knew no more than you! At first I thought I must have killed the twin brother of the "Auld Un'" but reflected that ferrets do not fly. It could not have been one of the keeper's children as I feared when I caught a glimpse of his face, for children do not have feathers to burn! At last, I said, rather testily, I fear: "Would you mind telling what is the trouble?" Sir William looked at me, more in sorrow than in anger, and solemnly replied: "It was a _pheasant_." Even then I did not understand. But little by little it came out that I had committed the unpardonable sin. For the time of pheasants was not yet! There is a heavy fine for shooting them out of season, but that did not trouble my generous host. It was the shame of the thing! If it were ever known among his fellow sportsmen that he or his keeper had been seen with a dead pheasant in their possession before the appointed day, he was a ruined man! Never again can I laugh at Mr. Winkle! It is true I had not posed as a sportsman, but I should have had the moral courage to decline to have anything to do with a sport which might bring sorrow to the owner of the beloved "Auld Un'," and entail a shameful secret on my kindly host. Much as I like them, I was glad to leave these kindly people, and one of them at least, I am sure, was glad to have me go! I can only hope that I may not be hereafter bracketed in his mind with the miscreant who is suspected of shooting partridges "sitting"! XXXI CHURCH AND STATE