tness of their hats: crash they get
through it, the noise they make among the thorns and rotten branches
resembling the outburst of a fire. Several gentlemen here decline under
cover of the trees.

'F--o--o--r--rard!' screams old Tom, as he dives through the stiff fence
and lands in the field outside the plantation. He might have saved his
breath, for the hounds were beating him as it was. Mr. Sponge bores through
the same place, little aided, however, by anything old Tom has done to
clear the way for him, and the rest follow in his wake.

The field is now reduced to six, and two of the number, Mr. Spareneck and
Caingey Thornton, become marked in their attention to our hero. Thornton is
riding Mr. Waffles' crack steeple-chaser 'Dare-Devil,' and Mr. Spareneck is
on a first-rate hunter belonging to the same gentleman, but they have not
been able to get our friend Sponge into grief. On the contrary, his horse,
though lathered goes as strong as ever, and Mr. Sponge, seeing their
design, is as careful of him as possible, so as not to lose ground. His
fine, strong, steady seat, and quiet handling, contrasts well with
Thornton's rolling bucketing style, who has already begun to ply a heavy
cutting whip, in aid of his spurs at his fences, accompanied with a half
frantic 'g--u--r--r--r along!' and inquires of the horse if he thinks he
stole him?

The three soon get in front; fast as they go, the hounds go faster, and
fence after fence is thrown behind them, just as a girl throws her
skipping-rope.

Tom and the whips follow, grinning with their tongues in their cheeks, Tom
still screeching 'F--o--o--o--rard!--F--o--o--o--rard!' at intervals.

A big stone wall, built with mortar, and coped with heavy blocks of stone,
is taken by the three abreast, for which they are rewarded by a gallop up
Stretchfurrow pasture, from the summit of which they see the hounds
streaming away to a fine grass country below, with pollard willows dotted
here and there in the bottom.

'Water!' says our friend Sponge to himself, wondering whether Hercules
would face it. A desperate black bullfinch, so thick that they could hardly
see through it, is shirked by consent, for a gate which a countryman opens,
and another fence or two being passed, the splashing of some hounds in the
water, and the shaking of others on the opposite bank, show that, as
usual, the willows are pretty true prophets.

Caingey, grinning his coarse red face nearly double, and get