So they cantered and trotted, and trotted and cantered away, Sponge thinking he could afford pace as well as Jawleyford.  Indeed, a horse has only to become a hack, to be able to do double the work he was ever supposed to be capable of.

But to the meet.

Scrambleford Green was a small straggling village on the top of a somewhat high hill, that divided the vale in which Jawleyford Court was situated from the more fertile one of Farthinghoe, in which Lord Scamperdale lived.

It was one of those out-of-the-way places at which the meet of the hounds, and a love feast or fair, consisting of two fiddlers (one for each public-house), a few unlicensed packmen, three or four gingerbread stalls, a drove of cows and some sheep, form the great events of the year among a people who are thoroughly happy and contented with that amount of gaiety.  Think of that, you ‘used up’ young gentlemen of twenty, who have exhausted the pleasures of the world!  The hounds did not come to Scrambleford Green often, for it was not a favourite meet; and when they did come, Frosty and the men generally had them pretty much to themselves.  This day, however, was the exception; and Old Tom Yarnley, whom age had bent nearly double, and who hobbled along on two sticks, declared that never in the course of his recollection, a period extending over the best part of a century, had he seen such a ‘sight of red coats’ as mustered that morning at Scrambleford Green.  It seemed as if there had been a sudden rising of sportsmen.  What brought them all out?  What brought Mr. Puffington, the master of the Hanby hounds, out?  What brought Blossomnose again?  What Mr. Wake, Mr. Fossick, Mr. Fyle, who had all been out the day before?  Reader, the news had spread throughout the country that there was a great writer down; and they wanted to see what he would say of them—­they had come to sit for their portraits, in fact.  There was a great gathering, at least for the Flat Hat Hunt, who seldom mustered above a dozen.  Tom Washball came, in a fine new coat and new flat-fliped hat with a broad binding; also Mr. Sparks, of Spark Hall; Major Mark; Mr. Archer, of Cheam Lodge; Mr. Reeves, of Coxwell Green; Mr. Bliss, of Boltonshaw; Mr. Joyce, of Ebstone; Dr. Capon, of Calcot; Mr. Dribble, of Hook; Mr. Slade, of Three-Burrow Hill; and several others.  Great was the astonishment of each as the other cast up.

‘Why, here’s Joe Reeves!’ exclaimed Blossomnose.  ’Who’d have thought of seeing you?’

‘And who’d have thought of seeing you?’ rejoined Reeves, shaking hands with the jolly old nose.

‘Here’s Tom Washball in time for once, I declare!’ exclaimed Mr. Fyle, as Mr. Washball cantered up in apple-pie order.

‘Wonders will never cease!’ observed Fossick, looking Washy over.

So the field sat in a ring about the hounds in the centre of which, as usual, were Jack and Lord Scamperdale, looking with their great tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and short grey whiskers trimmed in a curve up to their noses, like a couple of horned owls in hats.