‘Not his lordship’s hounds!’ roared Jack, now rising in his stirrups and brandishing his big whip.  ’Not his lordship’s hounds!  Tell me that, when they cost him five-and-twenty ’underd—­two thousand five ’underd a year!  Oh, by Jingo, but that’s a pretty go!  If they’re not his lordship’s hounds, I should like to know whose they are?’ and thereupon Jack wiped the foam from his mouth on his sleeve.

‘Sir Harry’s!’ exclaimed Mr. Sponge, again putting the horn to his lips, and blowing another shrill blast.

‘Sir Harry’s!’ screeched his lordship in disgust, for he hated the very sound of his name—­’Sir Harry’s!  Oh, you rusty-booted ruffian!  Tell me that to my very face!’

‘Sir Harry’s!’ repeated Jack, again standing erect in his stirrups.  ’What! impeach his lordship’s integrity—­oh, by Jove, there’s an end of everything!  Death before dishonour!  Slugs in a saw-pit!  Pistols and coffee for two!  Cock Pheasant at Weybridge, six o’clock i’ the mornin’!’ And Jack, sinking exhausted on his saddle, again wiped the foam from his mouth.

His lordship then went at Sponge again.

’Oh, you sanctified, putrified, pestilential, perpendicular, gingerbread-booted, counter-skippin’ snob, you think because I’m a lord, and can’t swear or use coarse language, that you may do what you like; but I’ll let you see the contrary,’ said he, brandishing his brother to Jack’s whip.  ‘Mark you, sir, I’ll fight you, sir, any non-huntin’ day you like, sir, ‘cept Sunday.’

Just then the clatter and blowing of horses was heard, and Frostyface emerged from the wood followed by the hounds, who, swinging themselves ‘forrard’ over the turnips, hit off the scent and went away full cry, followed by his lordship and Jack, leaving Mr. Sponge transfixed with astonishment.

‘Changed foxes,’ at length said Sponge, with a shake of his head; and just then the cry of hounds on the opposite bank confirmed his conjecture, and he got to Sir Harry’s in time to take up his lordship’s fox.

His lordship’s hounds ran into Sir Harry’s fox about two miles farther on, but the hounds would not break him up; and, on examining him, he was found to have been aniseeded; and, worst of all, by the mark on his ear to be one that they had turned down themselves the season before, being one of a litter that Sly had stolen from Sir Harry’s cover at Seedeygorse—­a beautiful instance of retributive justice.

CHAPTER LI

FARMER PEASTRAW’S DINE-MATINEE

There are pleasanter situations than being left alone with twenty couple of even the best-mannered fox-hounds; far pleasanter situations than being left alone with such a tearing, frantic lot as composed Sir Harry Scattercash’s pack.  Sportsmen are so used (with some hounds at least) to see foxes ‘in hand’ that they never think there is any difficulty in getting them there; and it is only a single-handed combat with the pack that shows them that the hound does not bring the fox up in his mouth like a retriever.  A tyro’s first tete-a-tete with a half-killed fox, with the baying pack circling round, must leave as pleasing a souvenir on the memory as Mr. Gordon Cumming would derive from his first interview with a lion.