mr. sponge's SPORTING TOUR. 329 



way. First turn on the right takes you to Collins' Green ; then keep 

 by the side of the church, next the pond ; then go straight for- 

 ward for about a mile and a half, or two miles, till you come to a 

 small village called Lea Green ; turn short at the finger-post as you 

 enter, and keep right along by the side of the hills till you come to 

 the Winslow Woods ; leave them on the left, and pass by Mr. Roby's 

 farm, at Runton — you'll know Mr.. Roby ? " 



" Not I," replied Mr. Sponge, hoisting himself into the saddle, 

 and holding out a hand to take leave of his host. 



" Good night, sir ; good night ! " exclaimed Mr. Peastraw, shaking 

 it ; " and have the goodness to tell Mr. Crowdey from me, that the 

 next time he comes here a bush-rangin', I'll thank him to shut the 

 gates after him. He set all my young stock wrong the last time 

 he was here." 



'• I will," replied Mr, Sponge, riding off. 



Mr. Peastraw's directions were well calculated to confuse a clearer 

 head than Mr. Sponge then carried ; and the reader will not be sur- 

 prised to learn that, long before he reached the Winslow Woods, he 

 was regularly bewildered. Indeed, there is no surer way of losing 

 oneself than trying to follow a long train of directions in a strange 

 country. It is far better to establish one's own landmarks, and make 

 for them as the natural course of the country seems to direct. Our 

 forefathers had a wonderful knack of getting to points with as little 

 circumlocution as possible. Mr. Sponge, however, knew no points, 

 and was quite at sea ; indeed, even if he had, they would have been 

 of little use, for a fitful and frequently obscured moon threw such 

 bewildering lights and shades around, that a native would have had 

 some difficulty in recognizing the country. The frost grew more in- 

 tense, the stars shone clear and bright, and the cold took our friend 

 by the nape of the neck, shooting across his shoulder-blades and right 

 down his back. Mr. Sponge wished and wished he was anywhere 

 but where he was — flattening his nose against the coffee-room window 

 of the Bantam, tooling in a Hansom as hard as he could go, squaring 

 aloDg Oxford-street criticising horses — nay, he wouldn't care to be 

 undergoing Gustavus James himself — anything, rather than rambling 

 about a strange country in a cold winter's night, with nothing but 

 the hooting of owls and the occasional bark of shepherds' dogs to 

 enliven his solitude. The houses were few, and far between. The 

 lights in the cottages had long been extinguished, and the occupiers 

 of such of the farmhouses as would come to his knocks were gruff in 

 their answers and short in their directions. At length, after riding, 

 and riding, and riding, more with a view of keeping himself awake 

 than in the expectation of finding his way, just as he was preparing 

 to arouse the inmates of a cottage by the roadside a sudden gleam of 

 moonlight fell upon the building, revealing the half-Swiss, half-Gothic 

 lodge of Puddingpote Bower. 



