At the appointed hour, Mr. Richard Grubb, ‘armed at all points,’ mounted the stage—­his hat cocked knowingly over his right eye—­his gun half-cocked and slung over his shoulder, and a real penny Cuba in his mouth.

“A fine mornin’ for sport,” remarked Mr. Richard Grubb to his fellow—­passenger, a stout gentleman between fifty and sixty years of age, with a choleric physiognomy and a fierce-looking pigtail.

“I dessay—­”

“Do you hang out at Highgate?” continued the sportsman.

“Hang out?”

“Ay, are you a hinhabitant?”

“To be sure I am.”

“Is there any birds thereabouts?”

“Plenty o’ geese,” sharply replied the old gentleman.

“Ha! ha! werry good!—­but I means game;—­partridges and them sort o’ birds.”

“I never see any except what I’ve brought down.”

“I on’y vish I may bring down all I see, that’s all,” chuckled the joyous Mr. Grubb.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t at all like that ’ere gun.”

“Lor! bless you, how timorsome you are, ’tain’t loaded.”

“Loaded or not loaded, it’s werry unpleasant to ride with that gun o’ yours looking into one’s ear so.”

“Vell, don’t be afeard, I’ll twist it over t’other shoulder,—­there! but a gun ain’t a coach, you know, vich goes off whether it’s loaded or not.  Hollo!  Spriggs! here you are, my boy, lord! how 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?”