138 Mil. sponge's sporting tour. 



landed safe on sound ground ; while poor Blossonmose, who was next, 

 went floundering overhead also. But the pace was too good to stop to 

 fish them out. 



" Dash it," said Sponge, looking at them splashing about, " but 

 that was a near go for me ! " 



Jack being thus disposed of, Sponge, with increased confidence, 

 rose in his stirrups, easing the redoubtable Hercules ; and patting 

 him on the shoulder, at the same time that he gave him the gentlest 

 possible touch of the spur, exclaimed, " By the powers, we'll show 

 these old Flat Hats the trick ! " He then commenced humming- 

 Mister Sponge, the raspers taking, 

 Sets the junkers' nerves a shaking ; — 



and riding cheerfully on, he at length found himself on the confines 

 of a wild, rough-looking moor, with an undulating range of hills in 

 the distance. 



Frostyface and Lord Scamperdale here for the first time diverged 

 from the line the hounds were running, and made for the neck of a 

 smooth, fiat, rather inviting-looking piece of ground, instead of cross- 

 ing it, Sponge, thinking to get a niche, rode to it; and the "deeper 

 and deeper still " sort of flounder his horse made soon let him know 

 that he was in a bog. The impetuous Hercules rushed and reared 

 onwards as if to clear the wide expanse ; and alighting still lower, 

 shot Sponge right overhead in the middle. 



" Thatfs cooked your goose ! " exclaimed his lordship, eyeing 

 Sponge and his horse floundering about in the black porridge-like 

 mess. 



" Catch my horse ! " hallooed Sponge to the first whip, who came 

 galloping up as Hercules was' breasting his way out again. 



" Catch him yourself," grunted the man, galloping on. 



A peat-cutter, more humane, received the horse as he emerged 

 from the black sea, exclaiming, as the now-piebald Sponge came lob- 

 bing after on foot, " A, sir ! but ye should niver set tee to ride 

 through sic a place as that ! " 



Sponge having generously rewarded the man with a fourpenny 

 piece, for catching his horse and scraping the thick of the mud off 

 him, again mounted and cantered round the point he should at first 

 have gone ; but his chance was out — the further he went, the further 

 he was left behind ; till at last, pulling up, he stood watching the 

 diminishing pack, rolling like marbles over the top of Botherjade 

 Hill, followed by his lordship hugging his horse round the neck as he 

 went, and the huntsman and whips leading and driving theirs up be- 

 fore them. 



" Nasty jealous old beggar ! " said Sponge, eyeing his lessening 

 lordship disappearing over the hill too. Sponge then performed the 

 sickening ceremony of turning away from hounds running ; not but 



