‘Ah, Tommy!  Tommy! you’d better shut up,’ observed another:  ’a pig could go as fast as that.’

And so they criticized the laggers.

‘How did my lord get his horse?’ asked Spraggon of the groom who had brought them on, who now joined the eye-straining group at the door.

‘It was taken down to him at the cover,’ replied the man.  ’My lord went in on foot, and the horse went round the back way.  The horse wasn’t there half a minute before he was wanted; for no sooner were the hounds in at one end than out popped the fox at t’other.  Sich a whopper!—­biggest fox that ever was seen.’

‘They are all the biggest foxes that ever were seen,’ snapped Mr. Sponge.’  I’ll be bound he was not a bit bigger than common.’

‘I’ll be bound not, either,’ growled Mr. Spraggon, squinting frightfully at the man, adding, ‘go, get me my hack, and don’t be talking nonsense there.’

Our friends then remounted their hacks and parted company in very moderate humours, feeling fully satisfied that his lordship had done it on purpose.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FINEST RUN THAT EVER WAS SEEN

[Illustration]

‘Hoo-ray, Jack!  Hoo-ray!’ exclaimed Lord Scamperdale, bursting into his sanctum where Mr. Spraggon sat in his hunting coat and slippers, spelling away at a second-hand copy of Bell’s Life by the light of a melancholy mould candle.  ‘Hooray, Jack! hooray!’ repeated he, waving that proud trophy, a splendid fox’s brush, over his grizzly head.

His lordship was the picture of delight.  He had had a tremendous run—­the finest run that ever was seen!  His hounds had behaved to perfection; his horse—­though he had downed him three times—­had carried him well, and his lordship stood with his crownless flat hat in his hand, and one coat lap in the pocket of the other—­a grinning, exulting, self-satisfied specimen of a happy Englishman.

‘Lor! what a sight you are!’ observed Jack, turning the light of the candle upon his lordship’s dirty person.  ’Why, I declare you’re an inch thick with mud,’ he added, ‘mud from head to foot,’ he continued, working the light up and down.

‘Never mind the mud, you old badger!’ roared his lordship, still waving the brush over his head:  ’never mind the mud, you old badger; the mud’ll come off, or may stay on; but such a run as we’ve had does not come off every day.’

‘Well, I’m glad you have had a run,’ replied Jack.  ’I’m glad you have had a run,’ adding, ‘I was afraid at one time that your day’s sport was spoiled.’