‘Catch him yourself,’ grunted the man, galloping on.

A peat-cutter, more humane, received the horse as he emerged from the black sea, exclaiming, as the now-piebald Sponge came lobbing after on foot, ’A, sir! but ye should niver set tee to ride through sic a place as that!’

Sponge, having generously rewarded the man with a fourpenny piece, for catching his horse and scraping the thick of the mud off him, again mounted, and cantered round the point he should at first have gone; but his chance was out—­the farther he went, the farther he was left behind; till at last, pulling up, he stood watching the diminishing pack, rolling like marbles over the top of Rotherjade Hill, followed by his lordship hugging his horse round the neck as he went, and the huntsman and whips leading and driving theirs up before them.

‘Nasty jealous old beggar!’ said Sponge, eyeing his lessening lordship disappearing over the hill too.  Sponge then performed the sickening ceremony of turning away from hounds running; not but that he might have plodded on on the line, and perhaps seen or heard what became of the fox, but Sponge didn’t hunt on those terms.  Like a good many other gentlemen, he would be first, or nowhere.

If it was any consolation to him, he had plenty of companions in misfortune.  The line was dotted with horsemen back to the brick-fields.  The first person he overtook wending his way home in the discontented, moody humour of a thrown-out man, was Mr. Puffington master of the Hanby hounds; at whose appearance at the meet we expressed our surprise.

Neighbouring masters of hounds are often more or less jealous of each other.  No man in the master-of-hound world is too insignificant for censure.  Lord Scamperdale was an undoubted sportsman; while poor Mr. Puffington thought of nothing but how to be thought one.  Hearing the mistaken rumour that a great writer was down, he thought that his chance of immortality was arrived; and, ordering his best horse, and putting on his best apparel, had braved the jibes and sneers of Jack and his lordship for the purpose of scraping acquaintance with the stranger.  In that he had been foiled:  there was no time at the meet to get introduced, neither could he get jostled beside Sponge in going down to the cover; while the quick find, the quick get away, followed by the quick thing we have described, were equally unfavourable to the undertaking.  Nevertheless, Mr. Puffington had held on beyond the brick-fields; and had he but persevered a little farther, he would have had the satisfaction of helping Mr. Sponge out of the bog.

Sponge now, seeing a red coat a little before, trotted on, and quickly overtook a fine nippy, satin-stocked, dandified looking gentleman, with marvellously smart leathers and boots—­a great contrast to the large, roomy, bargemanlike costume of the members of the Flat Hat Hunt.

‘You’re not hurt, I hope?’ exclaimed Mr. Puffington, with well-feigned anxiety, as he looked at Mr. Sponge’s black-daubed clothes.