It was one of Parvo’s going days; indeed, it was that that old Leather and he had quarrelled about—­Parvo wanting to follow the hounds, while Leather wanted to wait for his master.  And Parvo had the knack of going, as well as the occasional inclination.  Although such a drayhorse-looking animal, he could throw the ground behind him amazingly; and the deep-holding clay in which he now found himself was admirably suited to his short, powerful legs and enormous stride.  The consequence was, that he was very soon up with the hindmost horsemen.  These he soon passed, and was presently among those who ride hard when there is nothing to stop them.  Such time as these sportsmen could now spare from looking out ahead was devoted to Sponge, whom they eyed with the utmost astonishment, as if he had dropped from the clouds.

A stranger—­a real out-and-out stranger—­had not visited their remote regions since the days of poor Nimrod.  ‘Who could it be?’ But ‘the pace,’ as Nimrod used to say, ‘was too good to inquire.’  A little farther on, and Sponge drew upon the great guns of the hunt—­the men who ride to hounds, and not after them; the same who had criticized him through the fence—­Mr. Wake, Mr. Fossick, Parson Blossomnose, Mr. Fyle, Lord Scamperdale, Jack himself, and others.  Great was their astonishment at the apparition, and incoherent the observations they dropped as they galloped on.

‘It isn’t Wash, after all,’ whispered Fyle into Blossomnose’s ear, as they rode through a gate together.

‘No-o-o,’ replied the nose, eyeing Sponge intently.

‘What a coat!’ whispered one.

‘Jacket,’ replied the other.

‘Lost his brush,’ observed a third, winking at Sponge’s docked tail.

‘He’s going to ride over us all,’ snapped Mr. Fossick, whom Sponge passed at a hand-canter, as the former was blobbing and floundering about the deep ruts leading out of a turnip-field.

‘He’ll catch it just now,’ said Mr. Wake, eyeing Sponge drawing upon his lordship and Jack, as they led the field as usual.  Jack being at a respectful distance behind his great patron, espied Sponge first; and having taken a good stare at him through his formidable spectacles, to satisfy himself that it was nobody he knew—­a stare that Sponge returned as well as a man without spectacles can return the stare of one with—­Jack spurred his horse up to his lordship, and rising in his stirrups, shot into his ear—­

‘Why, here’s the man on the cow!’ adding, ‘it isn’t Washey.’

‘Who the deuce is it then?’ asked his lordship, looking over his left shoulder, as he kept galloping on in the wake of his huntsman.

‘Don’t know,’ replied Jack; ‘never saw him before.’

‘Nor I,’ said his lordship, with an air as much as to say, ’It makes no matter.’