‘Hie back!’ cried Sponge.  ‘Hie back!’ trying to turn them; but instead of the piebald carrying him in front of the pack, as Sponge wanted, he took to rearing, and plunging, and pawing the air.  The hounds meanwhile dashed jealously on without a scent, till first one and then another feeling ashamed, gave in; and at last a general lull succeeded the recent joyous cry.  Awful period! terrible to any one, but dreadful to a stranger!  Though Sponge was in the road, he well knew that no one has any business anywhere but with hounds, when a fox is astir.

‘Hold hard!’ was now the cry, and the perspiring riders and lathered steeds came to a standstill.

‘Twang—­twang—­twang,’ went a shrill horn; and a couple of whips, singling themselves out from the field, flew over the fence to where the hounds were casting.

‘Twang—­twang—­twang,’ went the horn again.

Meanwhile Sponge sat enjoying the following observations, which a westerly wind wafted into his ear.

‘Oh, d—­n me! that man in the lane’s headed the fox,’ puffed one.

‘Who is it?’ gasped another.

‘Tom Washball!’ exclaimed a third.

‘Heads more foxes than any man in the country,’ puffed a fourth.

‘Always nicking and skirting,’ exclaimed a fifth.

‘Never comes to the meet,’ added a sixth.

‘Come on a cow to-day,’ observed another.

‘Always chopping and changing,’ added another; ’he’ll come on a giraffe next.’

Having commenced his career with the ‘F.H.H.’ so inauspiciously and yet escaped detection, Mr. Sponge thought of letting Tom Washball enjoy the honours of his faux-pas, and of sneaking quietly home as soon as the hounds hit off the scent; but unluckily, just as they were crossing the lane, what should heave in sight, cantering along at his leisure, but the redoubtable Multum in Parvo, who, having got rid of old Leather by bumping and thumping his leg against a gate-post, was enjoying a line of his own.

‘Whoay!’ cried Sponge, as he saw the horse quickening his pace to have a shy at the hounds as they crossed.  ‘Who—­o—­a—­y!’ roared he, brandishing his whip, and trying to turn the piebald round; but no, the brute wouldn’t answer the bit, and dreading lest, in addition to heading the fox, he should kill ‘the best hound in the pack,’ Mr. Sponge threw himself off, regardless of the mud-bath in which he lit, and caught the runaway as he tried to dart past.

‘For-rard!—­for-rard!—­for-rard!’ was again the cry, as the hounds hit off the scent; while the late pausing, panting sportsmen tackled vigorously with their steeds, and swept onward like the careering wind.

Mr. Sponge, albeit somewhat perplexed, had still sufficient presence of mind to see the necessity of immediate action; and though he had so lately contemplated beating a retreat, the unexpected appearance of Parvo altered the state of affairs.

‘Now or never,’ said he, looking first at the disappearing field, and then for the non-appearing Leather.  ‘Hang it!  I may as well see the run,’ added he; so hooking the piebald on to an old stone gate-post that stood in the ragged fence, and lengthening a stirrup-leather, he vaulted into the saddle, and began lengthening the other as he went.