110 mr. sponge's sporting tour. 



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 Jawley- 

 ford's presence would do him good. 



Lord Scanrperdale'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 a man, he had his clothes to cor- 

 respond, 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 con- 

 siderable power. Jack was always at his lordship's elbow ; and it 

 was " Jack " this, " Jack " that, " Jack " something, all day long. But 

 we must return to Mr. Sponge, whom we left working his way 

 through the intricate fields. At last he got through them, and into 

 Red Pool Common, which, by leaving the windmill to the right, he 

 cleared pretty cleverly, and entered upon a district still wilder and 

 drearier than any he had traversed. Pewits screamed and hovered 

 over land that seemed to grow little but rushes and water-grasses, 

 with occasional heather. The ground poached and splashed as he 

 went ; worst of all, time was nearly up. 



In vain Sponge strained his eyes in search of Duntleton Tower. In 

 vain he fancied every high, sky-line-breaking place in the distance 

 was the much wished-for spot. Duntleton Tower was no more a tow- 

 er than it was a town, and would seem to have been christened by the 

 rule of contrary, for it was nothing but a great flat open space, with- 

 out object or incident to note it. 



Sponge, however, was not destined to see it. 



As he went floundering along through an apparently interminable 



