that he had _missed_, and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly into the wood. This was too much! To _miss_ once out of a hundred times! To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when he said, "Well, _Sir_, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go away and take your dog away, so as to prevent me from _finding_ it, you must do it; the dog is _yours_, to be sure." "The _dog_," said I, in a very mild tone, "why, Ewing, there is the spot; and could we not see it, upon this smooth green surface, if it were there?" However, he began to _look about_; and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search. Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw him, putting his hand behind him, _take a partridge out of his bag and let it fall upon the ground_! I felt no temptation to detect him, but turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having returned to the spot where the bird was, called out to me, in a most triumphant tone; "_Here! here!_ Come here!" I went up to him, and he, pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face at the same time, said, "There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a _warning_ to you never to be obstinate again"! "Well," said I, "come along:" and away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown's, he told them the story, triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know, that I knew of the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.