58 MR. sponge's sportixg tour. 



upon him. At all events they get together somehow. A belt of 

 Scotch fir plantation, with a stiffish fence on each side, tries their 

 mettle and the stoutness of their hats : crash they get through it, the 

 noise they make among the thorns and rotten branches resembling 

 the outburst of a fire. Several gentlemen here decline under cover 

 of the trees. 



U F — o — o — r — rardf" screams old Tom, as he dives through 

 the stiff fence and lands in the field outside the plantation. He 

 might have saved his breath, for the hounds were beating him as it 

 was. Mr. Sponge bores through the same place, little aided, how- 

 ever, Jby anything old Tom has done to clear the way for him, and 

 the rest follow in his wake. 



The field is now reduced to six, and two of the number, Mr. 

 Spareneck and Caingey Thornton, become marked in their attention 

 to our hero. Thornton is riding Mr. Waffles' crack steeple-chaser 

 " Dare-Devil," and Mr. Spareneck is on a first-rate hunter belonging 

 to the same gentleman, but they have not been able to get our friend 

 Sponge into grief. On the contrary, his horse, though lathered, goes 

 as strong as ever, and Mr. Sponge, seeing their design, is as careful 

 of him as possible, so as not to lose ground. His fine, strong, steady 

 seat, and quiet handling, contrasts well with Thornton's rolling, 

 bucketing style, who has already begun to ply a heavy cutting whip, 

 in aid of his spurs at his fences, accompanied with a half frantic 

 " 9 — u — r — r — r along ! " and inquires of the horse if he thinks he 

 stole him ? 



The three soon get in front ; fast as they go, the hounds go faster, 

 and fence after fence is thrown behind them, just as a girl throws her 

 skipping-rope. 



Tom and the whips follow grinning with their tongues in their 

 cheeks, Tom still screeching " F- — o — o — o — rard! — F — o — o — o — 

 rard ! " at intervals. 



A big stone wall, built with mortar, and coped with heavy blocks 

 of stone, is taken by the three abreast, for which they are rewarded by 

 a gallop up Stretchfurrow pasture, from the summit of which they 

 see the hounds streaming away to a fine grass country below, with 

 pollard willows dotted here and there in the bottom. 



" Water ! " says our friend Sponge to himself, wondering whether 

 Hercules would face it. A desperate black bullfinch, so thick that 

 they could hardly see through it, is shirked by consent, for a gate 

 which a countrymen opens, and another fence or two being passed, the 

 splashing of some hounds in the water, and the shaking of others on 

 the opposite bank, show that, a3 usual, the willows are pretty true 

 prophets. 



Caingey, grinning his coarse red face nearly double, and getting 

 his horse well by the head, rams in the spurs, and flourishes his cut- 

 ting whip high in the air, with a" g — u — u — ur along! do you 



