MR. sponge's sporting- tour. 183 



One always fancies a horse most with another man on him. We 

 see all his good points without feeling his imperfections — his trippings, 

 or startings, or snatchings, or borings, or roughness of action, and 

 Mr. Sponge proceeded to make a silent estimate of Multum-in- 

 Parvo's qualities as he trotted gently along on the grassy side of the 

 somewhat wide road. 



" By Jove ! it's a pity but his lordship had seen him," thought 

 Sponge, as the emulation of companionship made the horse gradually 

 increase his pace, and steal forward with the lightest, freest action 

 imaginable. " If he was but all right," continued Sponge, with a 

 shake of the head, " he would be worth any money, for he has the 

 strength of a dray-horse, with the symmetry and action of a racer." 



Then Sponge thought he shouldn't have an opportunity of show- 

 ing the horse till Thursday, for Jack had satisfied him that the next 

 day's meet was quite beyond distance from Jawleyford Court. 



" It's a bore," said he, rising in his stirrups, and tickling the 

 piebald with his spurs, as if he were going to set-to for a race. He 

 thought of having a trial of speed with the chestnut, up a slip of 

 turf they were now approaching ; but a sudden thought struck him, 

 and he desisted. " These horses have done nothing to-day," he said; 

 " why shouldn't I send the chestnut on for to-morrow?" 



" Do you know where the cross-roads are ? " he asked his groom. 



" Cross-roads, cross-roads — what cross-roads ? " replied Leather. 



" Where the hounds meet to-morrow." 



" Oh, the cross-roads at Somethin' Burn," rejoined Leather, 

 thoughtfully, — "no, 'deed, I don't," he added. "From all 'counts, 

 they seem to be somewhere on the far side of the world." 



That was not a very encouraging answer ; and feeling it would 

 require a good deal of persuasion to induce Mr. Leather to go in 

 search of them without clothing and the necessary requirements for 

 his horses, Mr. Sponge went trotting on, in hopes of seeing some 

 place where he might get a sight of the map of the county. So they 

 proceeded in silence, till a sudden turn of the road brought them to 

 the spire and housetops of the little agricultural town of Barleyboll. 

 It differed nothing from the ordinary run of small towns. It had a 

 pond at one end, an inn in the middle, a church at one side, a fash- 

 ionable milliner from London, a merchant tailor from the same place, 

 and a hardware shop or two, where they also sold treacle, Dartford 

 gunpowder, pocket handkerchiefs, sheep-nets, patent medicines, cheese, 

 blacking, marbles, mole-traps, men's hats, and other miscellaneous 

 articles. It was quite enough of a town, however, to raise a presump- 

 tion that there would be a map of the county at the inn. 



u We'll just put the horses up for a few minutes, I think," said 

 Sponge, turning into the stable-yard at the end of the Bed Lion 

 Hotel and Posting House ; adding, " I want to write a' letter, and 

 perhaps," said he, looking at his watch, " you may be wanting 3 our 

 dinner." 



