the winter, along with the ‘H.H.s,’ ‘V.W.H.s,’ and other initialized packs.  His lordship’s clothes were of the large, roomy, baggy, abundant order, with great pockets, great buttons, and lots of strings flying out.  Instead of tops, he sported leather leggings, which at a distance gave him the appearance of riding with his trousers up to his knees.  These the hunt too adopted; and his ‘particular,’ Jack (Jack Spraggon), the man whom he mounted, and who was made much in his own mould, sported, like his patron, a pair of great broad-rimmed, tortoise-shell spectacles of considerable power.  Jack was always at his lordship’s elbow; and it was ‘Jack’ this, ‘Jack’ that, ‘Jack’ something, all day long.  But we must return to Mr. Sponge, whom we left working his way through the intricate fields.  At last he got through them, and into Red Pool Common, which, by leaving the windmill to the right, he cleared pretty cleverly, and entered upon a district still wilder and drearier than any he had traversed.  Peewits screamed and hovered over land that seemed to grow little but rushes and water-grasses, with occasional heather.  The ground poached and splashed as he went; worst of all, time was nearly up.

In vain Sponge strained his eyes in search of Dundleton Tower.  In vain he fancied every high, sky-line-breaking place in the distance was the much-wished-for spot.  Dundleton Tower was no more a tower than it was a town, and would seem to have been christened by the rule of contrary, for it was nothing but a great flat open space, without object or incident to note it.

Sponge, however, was not destined to see it.

As he went floundering along through an apparently interminable and almost bottomless lane, whose sunken places and deep ruts were filled with clayey water, which played the very deuce with the cords and brown boots, the light note of a hound fell on his ear, and almost at the same instant, a something that he would have taken for a dog had it not been for the note of the hound, turned, as it were, from him, and went in a contrary direction.

Sponge reined in the piebald, and stood transfixed.  It was, indeed, the fox!—­a magnificent full-brushed fellow, with a slight tendency to grey along the back, and going with the light spiry ease of an animal full of strength and running.

‘I wish I mayn’t ketch it,’ said Sponge to himself, shuddering at the idea of having headed him.

It was, however, no time for thinking.  The cry of hounds became more distinct—­nearer and nearer they came, fuller and more melodious; but, alas! it was no music to Sponge.  Presently the cheering of hunters was heard—­’FOR—­rard!  FOR—­rard!’ and anon the rate of a whip farther back.  Another second, and hounds, horses, and men were in view, streaming away over the large pasture on the left.

There was a high, straggling fence between Sponge and the field, thick enough to prevent their identifying him, but not sufficiently high to screen him altogether.  Sponge pulled round the piebald, and gathered himself together like a man going to be shot.  The hounds came tearing full cry to where he was; there was a breast-high scent, and every one seemed to have it.  They charged the fence at a wattled pace a few yards below where he sat, and flying across the deep dirty lane, dashed full cry into the pasture beyond.