MR. sponge's SPORTING TOUR. 127 



up by a gate, which, he was making sundry ineffectual Briggs-like 

 passes and efforts to open; the gate and his horse seeming to have 

 combined to prevent his getting through. Though an expert swords- 

 man, he had never been able to accomplish the art of opening a gate, 

 especially one of those gingerly-balanced, spring-necked things that 

 require to be taken at the nick of time, or else they drop just as the 

 horse gets his nose to them. 



" Why arn't you here to open the gate ? " asked Jawleyford 

 snappishly, as the blue boy bustled up as his master's efforts became 

 more hopeless at each attempt. 



The lad, like a wise fellow, dropped from his horse, and opening 

 it with his hands, ran it back on foot. 



Jawleyford and Sponge then rode through. 



Canter, canter, canter, went Jawleyford, with an arm a-kimbo, 

 head well up, legs well down, toes well pointed, as if he were going to 

 a race, where his work would end on arriving, instead of to a fox- 

 hunt, where it would only begin. 



" You are rather hard on the old nag, arn't you ? " at length 

 asked Sponge, as, having cleared the rushy, swampy park, they came 

 upon the macadamised turnpike, and Jawleyford selected the middle 

 of it as the scene of his further progression. 



" Oh no ! " replied Jawleyford, tit-tup-ing along with a loose rein, 

 as if he was on the soundest, freshest-legged horse in the world ; 

 " oh no ! my horses are used to it." 



" Well, but if you mean to hunt him," observed Sponge, " he'll 

 be blown before he gets to cover." 



" G-et him in wind, my dear fellow," replied Jawleyford, " get 

 him in wind," touching the horse with the spur as he spoke. 



" Faith, but if he was as well on his legs as he is in his wind, he'd 

 not be amiss," rejoined Sponge. 



So they cantered and trotted, and trotted and cantered away, 

 Sponge thinking he could afford pace as well as Jawleyford. Indeed 

 a horse has only to become a hack, to be able to do double the work 

 he was ever supposed to be capable of. 



But to the meet. 



Scrambleford Green was a small straggling village on the top of a 

 somewhat high hill, that divided the vale in which Jawleyford Court 

 Was situated, from the more fertile one of Farthinghoe, in which Lord 

 Scamperdale lived. 



It was one of those out-of-the-way places at which the meet of 

 the hounds, and a love feast or fair, consisting of two fiddlers (one 

 for each public-house), a few unlicensed packmen, three or for ginger- 

 bread stalls, a drove of cows and some sheep, formed the great events 

 of the year, among a people who are thoroughly happy and contented 

 with that amount of gaiety. Think of that, you " used up " young 

 gentlemen of twenty, who have exhausted the pleasures of this world ! 



