MR. 8P0NGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 155 



" Oh, she can go when she's warm," replied the lad, taking her 

 across the ears with the point of the whip. The wheels followed 

 merrily over the sound, hard road through the park, and the gentle 

 though almost imperceptible fall of the ground giving an impetus to 

 the vehicle, they bowled away as if they had four of the soundest, 

 freshest legs in the world before them, instead of nothing but a belly- 

 band between them and eternity. 



When, however, they cleared the noble lodge and got upon the 

 unscraped mud of the Deepdebt turnpike, the pace soon slackened, 

 and, instead of the gig running away with the old mare, she was 

 fairly brought to her collar. Being a gamer one, however, she strug- 

 gled on with a trot, till at length, turning up the deeply-spurlinged 

 clayey-bottomed cross-road between Rookgate and Clamley, it was 

 all she could do to drag the gig through the holding mire. Bump, 

 bump, jolt, jolt, creak, creak, went the vehicle, Jack now diving his 

 elbow into the lad's ribs, the lad now diving his into Jack's ; both 

 now threatening to go over on the same side, and again both nearly 

 chucked on to the old mare's quarters. A sharp, cutting sleet, driv- 

 ing pins and needles directly in their faces, further disconcerted our 

 travellers. Jack felt acutely for his new eight-and-sixpenny hat, it 

 being the only article of dress he had on of his own. 



Long and tedious as was the road, weak and jaded as was the 

 mare, and long as Jack stopped at Starfield, he yet reached Jawley- 

 ford Court before the messenger Harry. 



As our friend Jawleyford was stamping about his study, anathe- 

 matising a letter he had received from the solicitor to the directors 

 of the Doembrown and Sinkall Railway, informing him that they 

 were going to indulge in the winding-up act, he chanced to look out 

 of his window just as the contracted limits of a winter's day were 

 drawing the first folds of night's muslin curtain over the landscape, 

 when he espied a gig drawn by a white horse, with a dot-and-go-one 

 sort of action, hopping its way up the slumpey avenue. 



" That's Buggins the bailiff," exclaimed he to himself, as the re- 

 collection of an unanswered lawyer's letter flashed across his mind ; 

 and he was just darting off to the bell to warn Spigot not to admit 

 any one, when the lad's cockade, standing in relief against the sky- 

 line, caused him to pause and gaze again at the unwonted apparition. 



" Who the deuce can it be ? " asked he of himself, looking at his 

 watch, and seeing it was a quarter past four. " It surely can't be 

 my lord, or that Jack Spraggon coming after all ? " added he, draw- 

 ing out a telescope and opening a lancet-window. 



" Spraggon, as I live ! " exclaimed he, as he caught Jack's harsh, 

 spectacled features, and saw him titivating his hair, and arranging 

 his collar and stock as he approached. 



" Well, that beats everything!" exclaimed Jawleyford, burning 

 with rage, as he fastened the window again. 



