86 mr. sponge's sporting tour. 



" Not lie ! " exclaimed Watson, " not he ! — safe bird — very" 



" He's rich, I suppose ? " continued Sponge, with an air of in- 

 difference. 



u Why, / should say he was ; though others say he's not," replied 

 Watson, cropping the old pony with the dog-whip, as it nearly fell on 

 its nose. " He can't fail to be rich, with all his property ; though 

 they're desperate hands for gaddin' about ; always off to some waterin' 

 place or another, lookin' for husbands, I suppose. I wonder," he con- 

 tinued, " that gentlemen can't settle at home, and amuse themselves 

 with coursin' and shootin'." Mr. Watson, like many servants, think- 

 ing that the bulk of a gentleman's income should be spent in promot- 

 ing the particular sport over which they preside. 



With this and similar discourse, they beguiled the short distance 

 between the station and the Court — a distance, however, that looked 

 considerably greater after the flying rapidity of the rail. But for 

 these occasional returns to ierra firma, people would begin to fancy 

 themselves birds. After rounding a large but gently swelling hill, 

 over the summit of which the road, after the fashion of old roads, led, 

 our traveller suddenly looked down upon the wide vale of Sniper- 

 down, with Jawleyford Court glittering with a bright open aspect, on 

 a fine gradual elevation, above the broad, smoothly-gliding river. A 

 clear atmosphere, indicative either of rain or frost, disclosed a vast 

 tract of wild, flat, ill-cultivated looking country to the south, little 

 interrupted by woods or signs of population ; the whole losing itself, 

 as it were, in an indistinct gray outline, commingling with the fleecy 

 white clouds in the distance. 



" Here we be," observed Watson, with a nod towards where a 

 tarnished red-and-gold flag floated, or rather flapped lazily in the 

 winter's breeze, above an irregular mass of towers, turrets, and odd- 

 shaped chimneys. 



Jawleyford Court was a fine old mansion, partaking more of the 

 character of a castle than a Court, with its keep and towers, battle- 

 ments, heavily grated mullioned windows, and machicolated gallery. 

 It stood, sombre and gray, in the midst of gigantic but now leafless 

 sycamores, — trees that had to thank themselves for being sycamores ; 

 for, had they been oaks, or other marketable wood, they would have 

 been made into bonnets or shawls long before now. The building itself 

 was irregular, presenting different sorts of architecture, from pure 

 Gothic down to some even perfectly modern buildings ; still, viewed 

 as a whole, it was massive and imposing ; and as Mr. Sponge looked 

 down upon it, he thought far more of Jawleyford & Co. than he 

 did as the mere occupants of a modest, white-stuccoed, green-veran- 

 dahed house, at Laverick Wells. Nor did his admiration diminish 

 as he advanced, and crossing by a battlemcnted bridge over the moat, 

 he viewed the massive character of the buildings rising grandly from 

 their rocky foundation. An imposing, solemn-toned old clock began 



