Page:In times of peril.djvu/15

 at which their masters ride, run just behind, in readiness to take the horses, should they dismount.

"Good-morning, Miss Warrener; good-morning, Miss Hertford: we have brought you some interesting news."

"Indeed!" said the girls, as they shook hands with the newcomers, who were two as good specimens of tall, well-made, sunburned Anglo-Saxons as one would wish to see. "What is it?"

"We have just got the news that a family of wild boars have come down, and are doing a lot of damage near Meanwerrie, four miles off. I suppose they have been disturbed somewhere further away, as we have not heard of any pig here for months; so to-morrow morning there is going to be grand pig-sticking; of course you will come out and see the fun?"

"We shall be delighted," said Kate; but Rose put in, "Yes; but oh! how unfortunate! it's Mrs. Briarley's garden party."

"That has been put off till next day. It is not often we get a chance at pig, and we have always got gardens. The two need not have interfered with each other, as we shall start at daylight for Meanwerrie; but we may be out some hours, and so it was thought better to put off the party to a day when there will be nothing else to do."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dick; "I am in luck! I wanted, above all things, to see a wild-boar hunt; do you think my father will let me have a spear?"

"Hardly, Dick, considering that last time you went out you tumbled off three times at some jumps two feet wide, and that were you to fall in front of a pig he would rip you up before you had time to think about it; besides which, you would almost certainly stick somebody with your spear."

Dick laughed.