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Accordingly, they met at the breakfast-table a full hour earlier than on the previous day, and having despatched a hearty meal, sallied forth, accompanied by Mr. Mackintosh, who declined carrying a gun, and contented himself with showing the way. Having walked some little distance, they came to a stile, which they climbed over, and after traversing a plot of pasture-land arrived at a gate, beyond which was a field of fine buckwheat. Here the guide called a halt.

"Wait a minute! — wait a minute!" cried he; "you are not so much accustomed to sporting as I."

They stopped. He advanced to the gate, looked over, and hastily returned.

"Now's the time!" he said eagerly; "there's lots of birds in that field!" They crept very cautiously onwards: but when they reached the gate and saw beyond it, were amazed to discern nothing but an immense quantity of pigeons feeding in the field.

"There's a covey!" said Mackintosh, admiringly.

"A covey!" exclaimed Grimaldi. "Where? I see nothing but pigeons."

"Nothing but pigeons!" exclaimed Mackintosh, contemptuously. "What did you expect to find? Nothing but pigeons! — Well!"

"I expected to find pheasants and partridges," answered both sportsmen together. Bologna, upon whom the sulks were again beginning to fall, gave a grunt of disapprobation; but Mackintosh either was, or pretended to be, greatly surprised.

"Pheasants and partridges!" he exclaimed, with a ludicrous expression of amazement. "Oh dear, quite out of the question! I invited you down here to shoot birds — and pigeons are birds; and there are the pigeons — shoot away, if you like. I have performed my part of the agreement. Pheasants and partridges!" he repeated: "most extraordinary!"

"The fellow's a humbug!" whispered Bologna; "kill as many of his pigeons as you can."

With this understanding, Bologna fired at random into the nearest cluster of pigeons, and Grimaldi fired upon them as they rose frightened from the ground. The slaughter was very great: they picked up twenty in that field, five in the one beyond, and saw besides several fall which they could not find. This great success, and the agreeable employment of picking up the birds, restored their equanimity of temper, and all went well for some time, until Mackintosh said inquiringly,

"I think you have them all now?"

"I suppose we have," replied Bologna; "at least, all except those which we saw fall among the trees yonder."

"Those you will not be able to get," said Mackintosh.

"Very good; such being the case, we have 'em all," returned Bologna.

"Very well," said Mackintosh, quietly; "and now, if you will take my advice, you will cut away at once."

"Cut away!" said Bologna.

"Cut away!" exclaimed Grimaldi.

"Cut away is the word!" repeated Mr. Mackintosh.

"And why, pray?" asked Bologna.

"Why?" said Mr. Mackintosh. "Isn't the reason obvious? — Because you've killed the pigeons."

"But what has our killing these pigeons to do with cutting away?" — Chapter X. 1803 to 1805. "Bologna and his Family —​An Excursion into Kent with that personage —​Mr. Mackintosh, the gentleman of landed property, and his preserves —​A great day's sporting; and a scene at the Garrick's Head in Bow-street between a Landlord, a Gamekeeper, Bologna, and Grimaldi," pp. 109-110.

Commentary

Dickens wrote an introductory chapter extolling the delights of pantomime, also a concluding one, and set much store by both of them. Throughout the work there are unmistakable Dickens touches, like the description of Grimaldi 'coughing very fiercely' in an attempt to frighten off some suspected burglars, and ironic asides like the one about two night watchmen having been 'chosen, as the majority of that fine body of men were, with a specific view to their old age and infirmities'. Moreover, in certain places Dickens has completely changed the original Grimaldi/Wilks text, 'telling some of the stories in my own way'. He sometimes ends up with something that could well be an episde from Pickwick, like the anecdote in chapter 10 about the fraudster who invites Grimaldi and a friend of his down to his non-existent country estate for a day's shooting and lands them in a ludicrous​ scrape. Dickens also speaks of giving the book a 'colouring' throughout to bring out the kind-heartedness of Grimaldi. We can already see in his recension of this manuscript the brilliant future editor of Household Words and All the Year Round 'diffusing himself', as he was later to express it, throughout every issue, improvising, sharpening and 'brightening' his contributors' offerings. — Michael Slater, p. 112.

Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 28 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxfiord: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Grimaldi, Joseph, and Charles Dickens. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Edited By 'Boz'. With ten illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge and Sons. The Broadway, Ludgate. New York: 416, Broome Street, 1869.

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Kitton, Frederic G. The Minor Writings of Charles Dickens: A Bibliography and a Sketch. London: Elliot Stock, 1900.

Schlicke, Paul. "Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. P. 374.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.

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