w you are figg'd
out--didn't know you--jump up!"

"Vere's my instrument o' destruction?" enquired the lively Augustus, when
he had succeeded in mounting to his seat.

"Stow'd him in the boot!"

The coachman mounted and drove off; the sportsmen chatting and laughing
as they passed through 'merry Islington.'

"Von't ve keep the game alive!" exclaimed Spriggs, slapping his friend
upon the back.

"I dessay you will," remarked the caustic old boy with the pigtail; "for
it's little you'll kill, young gentlemen, and that's my belief!"

"On'y let's put 'em up, and see if we don't knock 'em down, as cleverly
as Mister Robins does his lots," replied Spriggs, laughing at his own
wit.

Arrived at Highgate, the old gentleman, with a step-fatherly anxiety,
bade them take care of the 'spring-guns' in their perambulations.

"Thankee, old boy," said Spriggs, "but we ain't so green as not to know
that spring guns, like spring radishes, go off long afore Autumn, you
know!"

CHAPTER II.

The Death of a little Pig, which proves a great Bore!

"Now let's load and prime--and make ready," said Mr. Richard, when they
had entered an extensive meadow, "and--I say--vot are you about? Don't
put the shot in afore the powder, you gaby!"

Having charged, they shouldered their pieces and waded through the tall
grass.

"O! crikey!--there's a heap o' birds," exclaimed Spriggs, looking up at a
flight of alarmed sparrows. "Shall I bring 'em down?"

"I vish you could! I'd have a shot at 'em," replied Mr. Grubb, "but
they're too high for us, as the alderman said ven they brought him a
couple o' partridges vot had been kept overlong!"

"My eye! if there ain't a summat a moving in that 'ere grass yonder--cock
your eye!" "Cock your gun--and be quiet," said Mr. Grubb. The anxiety of
the two sportsmen was immense. "It's an hare--depend on't--stoop
down--pint your gun,--and when I say fire--fire! there it is--fire!"

Bang! bang! went the two guns, and a piercing squeak followed the report.

"Ve've tickled him," exclaimed Spriggs, as they ran to pick up the spoil.

"Ve've pickled him, rayther," cried Grubbs, "for by gosh it's a piggy!"

"Hallo! you chaps, vot are you arter?" inquired a man, popping his head
over the intervening hedge. "Vy, I'm blessed if you ain't shot von o'
Stubbs's pigs." And leaping the hedge he took the 'pork' in his arms,
while the sportsmen who had used their arms so destructively now took to
their legs