MR. sponge's SPORTING TOUR. 407 



mere nothing until such times as the owner could convert it into that 

 last refuge for deserted houses — an academy, or a " young ladies' 

 seminary." Mr. Viney, now, having plenty of leisure, frequently 

 drove his " missis " (once a lady's maid in a quality family) up to 

 Nonsuch House, as well for the sake of the airing — for the road was 

 pleasant and picturesque — as to see if he could get the " little trifle" 

 Sir Harry owed him for post-horses, bottles of soda-water, and such 

 trifles as country gentlemen run up scores for at their posting- 

 houses, — scores that seldom get smaller by standing. In these 

 excursions Mr. Viney made the acquaintance of Mr. Watchorn ; and 

 a huntsman being a character with whom even the landlord of an 

 inn — we beg pardon, hotel and posting-house — may associate with- 

 out degradation, Viney and Watchorn became intimate. "Watchorn 

 sympathised with Viney, and never failed to take a glass in passing, 

 either at exercise or out hunting, to deplore that such a nice-looking 

 house, so " near the station, too," should be ruined as an inn. It was 

 after a more than usual libation that Watchorn, trotting merrily along 

 with the hounds, having accomplished three blank days in succession, 

 asked himself, as he looked upon the surrounding vale from the rising 

 ground of Hammercock Hill, with the cream-coloured station and 

 the rose-coloured hotel peeping through the trees, whether something 

 might not be done to give the latter a lift. At first he thought of a 

 pigeon-match — a sweepstake open to all England — fifty members say, 

 at two pound ten each, seven pigeons, seven sparrows, twenty-one 

 yards rise, two ounces of shot, and so on. But then, again, he thought 

 there would be a difficulty in getting guns. A coursing-match — how 

 would that do ? Answer : " No hares." The farmers had made 

 such an outcry about the game, that the landowners had shot them 

 all off, and now the farmers were grumbling that they couldn't get 

 a course. 



f" Dash my buttons ! " exclaimed Watchorn ; " it would be the 

 very thing for a steeple-chase ! There's old Puff's hounds, and old 

 Scamp's hounds, and these hounds," looking down on the ill-sorted 

 lot around him ; " and the deuce is in it if we couldn't give the 

 thing such a start as would bring down the lads of the ' village,' and 

 a vast amount of good business might be done. I'm dashed if it 

 isn't the very country for a steeple-chase ! " continued Watchorn, 

 casting his eye over Cloverley Park, round the enclosure of Lang- 

 worth Grange, and up the rising ground of Lark Lodge. 



The more Watchorn thought of it, the more he was satisfied of 

 its feasibility, and he trotted over, the next day, to the Old Duke of 

 Cumberland, to see his friend on the subject. Viney, like most 

 victuallers, was more given to games of skill — billiards, shuttlecock, 

 skittles, dominoes, and so on — than to the rude out-of-door chances 

 of flood and field, and at first he doubted his ability to grapple with 

 the details ; but on Mr. Watchorn's assurance that he would keep 



