MB. SPONGE'S SPOB.TING TOUR. 105 



Sponge was enabled to set off at a hard canter, cheered by the 

 "•room's observation, that " he thought he would be there in time." 

 On, on he went ; now speculating on a turn ; now pulling a 

 scratch map he had made on a bit of paper out of his waistcoat- 

 pocket ; now inquiring the name of any place he saw of any per- 

 son he met. So he proceeded for five or six miles without much 

 difficulty ; the road, though not all turnpike, being mainly over 

 good sound township ones. It was at the village of Swineley, with 

 its chubby-towered church and miserable hut-like cottages, that his 

 troubles were to begin. He had two sharp turns to make — to ride 

 through a straw-yard, and leap over a broken-down wall at the 

 corner of a cottage — to get into Swaithing Green Lane, and so cut 

 off an angle of two miles. The road then became a bridle one, 

 and was, like all bridle ones, very plain to those who know them, 

 and very puzzling to those who don't. It was evidently a little- 

 frequented road ; and what with looking out for footmarks (now 

 nearly obliterated by the recent rains) and speculating on what 

 queer corners of the fields the gates would be in, Mr. Sponge 

 found it necessary to reduce his pace to a very moderate trot. 

 Still he had made good way ; and supposing they gave a quarter- 

 of-an-hour's law, and he had not been deceived as to distance, he 

 thought he should get to the meet about the time. His horse, too, 

 would be there, and perhaps Lord Scamperdale might give a little 

 extra law on that account. He then began speculating on what 

 sort of a man his lordship was, and the probable nature of his 

 reception. He began to wish that Jawleyford had accompanied 

 him, to introduce him. Not that Sponge was shy, but still he 

 thought that Jawleyford's presence would do him good. 



Lord Scamperdale's hunt was not the most polished in the 

 world. The hounds and the horses were a good deal better bred 

 than the men. Of course his lordship gave the tone to the whole ; 

 and being a coarse, broad, barge-built sort of man, he had his 

 clothes to correspond, and looked like a drayman in scarlet. He 

 wore a great round flat-brimmed hat, which being adopted by the 

 hunt generally, procured it the name of the "F. H. H.," or " Flat 

 Hat Hunt." Our readers, we daresay, have noticed it figuring 

 away, in the list of hounds during the winter, along with the 

 H. H.'s, "V. W. H.'s" and other initialized packs. His lordship's 

 clothes were of the large, roomy, baggy, abundant order, with 

 great pockets, great buttons, and lots of strings flying out. 

 Instead of tops, he sported leather leggings, which at a distance 

 gave him the appearance of riding with his trousers up to his 

 knees. These the hunt too adopted ; and his " particular," Jack, 

 (Jack Spraggon) the man whom he mounted, and who was made 

 much in his own mould, sported, like his patron, a pair of 

 great broad-rimmed, tortoise-shell spectacles of considerable 



