After rampaging round the room, sniffing the air, and vainly attempting to get at us, the sow ran under the table, which she unceremoniously upset, when, with a peculiar grunt summoning her progeny to the feast, she and they immediately commenced gobbling up our viands. Seeing this, I jumped down, intending to drive her away, but scarcely had I reached the ground when she made so savage a rush at me that I was glad to regain my former position. "This is too bad," cried the major; and, slipping off the drawers, he seized a chair, with the intention of belabouring our assailant, when just at that moment one of the young pigs, of an inquisitive disposition, hearing the bubbling water on the fire, attempting to look into the pot, brought the scalding contents down upon itself. On feeling its tender bristles getting loose, it set up the most terrific cries, louder even than the most obstinate of its race when the butcher is making preparations for manufacturing it into corned pork. The sow, attributing the cries of her darling to some torture inflicted by us, rushed to the drawers, making several savage attempts to rear up against them so that she could seize us by the legs. Every moment we expected to be caught hold of by the hook in her nose, when we should have inevitably been brought down. In vain we kicked and stamped at her to drive her off, while we shouted loudly for assistance. As it turned out, Larry and Tim were in the stables attending to the horses, while the landlord and his family, having performed, as they supposed, all their required duties in attending on us, had gone to the potato garden. Not for some minutes did Pat hear our voices, and then in he rushed, with astonishment depicted on his countenance. Seizing a stick, he began belabouring the sow, bestowing on her epithets numberless and profuse.