Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 19

'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 n.o.body 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.'

His lordship, though well mounted, was not exactly on the sort of horse for the country they were in; while Mr. Sponge, in addition to being on the very animal for it, had the advantage of the horse having gone the first part of the run without a rider: so Multum in Parvo, whether Mr. Sponge wished it or not, insisted on being as far forward as he could get. The more Sponge pulled and hauled, the more determined the horse was; till, having thrown both Jack and his lordship in the rear, he made for old Frostyface, the huntsman, who was riding well up to the still-flying pack.

'HOLD HARD, sir! For G.o.d's sake, hold hard!' screamed Frosty, who knew by intuition there was a horse behind, as well as he knew there was a man shooting in front, who, in all probability, had headed the fox.

'HOLD HARD, sir!' roared he, as, yawning and boring and shaking his head, Parvo dashed through the now yelping scattered pack, making straight for a stiff new gate, which he smashed through, just as a circus pony smashes through a paper hoop.

'Hoo-ray!' shouted Jack Spraggon, on seeing the hounds were safe. 'Hoo-ray for the tailor!'

'Billy b.u.t.ton, himself!' exclaimed his lordship, adding, 'never saw such a thing in my life!'

'Who the deuce is he?' asked Blossomnose, in the full glow of pulling-five-year-old exertion.

'Don't know,' replied Jack, adding, 'he's a shaver, whoever he is.'

Meanwhile the frightened hounds were scattered right and left.

'I'll lay a guinea he's one of those confounded waiting chaps,' observed Fyle, who had been handled rather roughly by one of the tribe, who had dropped 'quite promiscuously' upon a field where he was, just as Sponge had done with Lord Scamperdale's.

'Shouldn't wonder,' replied his lordship, eyeing Sponge's vain endeavours to turn the chestnut, and thinking how he would 'pitch into him' when he came up. 'By Jove,' added his lordship, 'if the fellow had taken the whole country round, he couldn't have chosen a worse spot for such an exploit; for there never _is_ any scent over here. See! not a hound can own it. Old Harmony herself throws up.

The whips again are in their places, turning the astonished pack to Frostyface, who sets off on a casting expedition. The field, as usual, sit looking on; some blessing Sponge; some wondering who he was; others looking what o'clock it is; some dismounting and looking at their horses' feet.

'Thank you, Mr. Brown Boots!' exclaimed his lordship, as, by dint of bitting and spurring, Sponge at length worked the beast round, and came sneaking back in the face of the whole field. 'Thank you, Mr. Brown Boots,'

repeated he, taking off his hat and bowing very low. 'Very much obl_e_ged to you, Mr. Brown Boots. Most particklarly obl_e_ged to you, Mr. Brown Boots,' with another low bow. 'Hang'd obl_e_ged to you, Mr. Brown Boots!

D--n you, Mr. Brown Boots!' continued his lordship, looking at Sponge as if he would eat him.

'Beg pardon, sir,' blurted Sponge; 'my horse--'

'Hang your horse!' screamed his lordship; 'it wasn't your horse that headed the fox, was it?'

'Beg pardon--couldn't help it; I--'

'Couldn't help it. Hang your helps--you're _always_ doing it, sir. You could stay at home, sir--I s'pose, sir--couldn't you, sir? eh, sir?'

Sponge was silent.

'See, sir!' continued his lordship, pointing to the mute pack now following the huntsman, 'you've lost us our fox, sir--yes, sir, lost us our fox, sir. D'ye call that nothin', sir? If you don't, _I_ do, you perpendicular-looking Puseyite pig-jobber! By Jove! you think because I'm a lord, and can't swear, or use coa.r.s.e language, that you may do what you like--but I'll take my hounds home, sir--yes, sir, I'll take my hounds home, sir.' So saying, his lordship roared HOME to Frostyface; adding, in an undertone to the first whip, 'bid him go to Furzing-field gorse.'

CHAPTER XXI

A COUNTRY DINNER-PARTY

[Ill.u.s.tration]

'Well, what sport?' asked Jawleyford, as he encountered his exceedingly dirty friend crossing the entrance hall to his bedroom on his return from his day, or rather his non-day, with the 'Flat Hat Hunt.'

'Why, not much--that's to say, nothing particular--I mean, I've not had any,' blurted Sponge.

'But you've had a run?' observed Jawleyford, pointing to his boots and breeches, stained with the variation of each soil.

'Ah, I got most of that going to cover,' replied Sponge; 'country's awfully deep, roads abominably dirty!' adding, 'I wish I'd taken your advice, and stayed at home.'

'I wish you had,' replied Jawleyford, 'you'd have had a most excellent rabbit-pie for luncheon. However, get changed, and we will hear all about it after.' So saying, Jawleyford waved an adieu, and Sponge stamped away in his dirty water-logged boots.

'I'm afraid you are very wet, Mr. Sponge,' observed Amelia in the sweetest tone, with the most loving smile possible, as our friend, with three steps at a time, bounded upstairs, and nearly b.u.t.ted her on the landing, as she was on the point of coming down.

'I am that,' exclaimed Sponge, delighted at the greeting; 'I am that,'

repeated he, slapping his much-stained cords; 'dirty, too,' added he, looking down at his nether man.

'Hadn't you better get changed as quick as possible?' asked Amelia, still keeping her position before him.

'Oh! all in good time,' replied Sponge, 'all in good time. The sight of you warms me more than a fire would do'; adding, 'I declare you look quite bewitching, after all the roughings and tumblings about out of doors.'

'Oh! you've not had a fall, have you?' exclaimed Amelia, looking the picture of despair; 'you've not had a fall, have you? Do send for the doctor, and be bled.'

Just then a door along the pa.s.sage to the left opened; and Amelia, knowing pretty well who it was, smiled and tripped away, leaving Sponge to be bled or not as he thought proper.

Our hero then made for his bedroom, where, having sucked off his adhesive boots, and divested himself of the rest of his hunting attire, he wrapped himself up in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and prepared for parboiling his legs and feet, amid agreeable antic.i.p.ations arising out of the recent interview, and occasional references to his old friend _Mogg_, whenever he did not see his way on the matrimonial road as clearly as he could wish.

'She'll have me, that's certain,' observed he.

'Curse the water! how hot it is!' exclaimed he, catching his foot up out of the bath, into which he had incautiously plunged it without ascertaining the temperature of the water. He then sluiced it with cold, and next had to add a little more hot; at last he got it to his mind, and lighting a cigar, prepared for uninterrupted enjoyment.

'Gad!' said he, 'she's by no means a bad-looking girl' (whiff). 'Devilish good-looking girl' (puff); 'good head and neck, and carries it well too'

(puff)--'capital eye' (whiff), 'bright and clear' (puff); 'no cataracts there. She's all good together' (whiff, puff, whiff). 'Nice size too,'

continued he, 'and well set up (whiff, puff, whiff); 'straight as a dairy maid' (puff); 'plenty of substance--grand thing substance' (puff). 'Hate a weedy woman--fifteen two and a half--that's to say, five feet four's plenty of height for a woman' (puff). 'Height of a woman has nothing to do with her size' (whiff). 'Wish she hadn't run off (puff); 'would like to have had a little more talk with her' (whiff, puff). 'Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting' (puff). He then sank silently back in the easy-chair and whiffed and puffed all sorts of fantastic clouds and columns and corkscrews at his leisure. The cigar being finished, and the water in the foot-bath beginning to get cool, he emptied the remainder of the hot into it, and lighting a fresh cigar, began speculating on how the match was to be accomplished.

The lady was safe, that was clear; he had nothing to do but 'pop.' That he would do in the evening, or in the morning, or any time--a man living in the house with a girl need never be in want of an opportunity. That preliminary over, and the usual answer 'Ask papa' obtained, then came the question, how was the old boy to be managed?--for men with marriageable daughters are to all intents and purposes 'old boys,' be their ages what they may.

He became lost in reflection. He sat with his eyes fixed on the Jawleyford portrait above the mantelpiece, wondering whether he was the amiable, liberal, hearty, disinterested sort of man he appeared to be, indifferent about money, and only wanting unexceptionable young men for his daughters; or if he was a worldly minded man, like some he had met, who, after giving him every possible encouragement, sent him to the right-about like a servant. So Sponge smoked and thought, and thought and smoked, till the water in the foot-bath again getting cold, and the shades of night drawing on, he at last started up like a man determined to awake himself, and poking a match into the fire, lighted the candles on the toilet-table, and proceeded to adorn himself. Having again got himself into the killing tights and buckled pumps, with a fine flower-fronted shirt, ere he embarked on the delicacies and difficulties of the starcher, he stirred the little pittance of a fire, and, folding himself in his dressing-gown, endeavoured to prepare his mind for the calm consideration of all the minute bearings of the question by a little more _Mogg_. In idea he transferred himself to London, now fancying himself standing at the end of Burlington Arcade, hailing a Fulham or Turnham Green 'bus; now wrangling with a conductor for charging him sixpence when there was a pennant flapping at his nose with the words "ALL THE WAY 3D." upon it; now folding the wooden doors of a hansom cab in Oxford Street, calculating the extreme distance he could go for an eightpenny fare: until at last he fell into a downright vacant sort of reading, without rhyme or reason, just as one sometimes takes a read of a directory or a dictionary--"Conduit Street, George Street, to or from the Adelphi Terrace, Astley's Amphitheatre, Baker Street, King Street, Bryanston Square any part, Covent Garden Theatre, Foundling Hospital, Hatton Garden," and so on, till the thunder of the gong aroused him to a recollection of his duties. He then up and at his neckcloth.

"Ah, well," said he, reverting to his lady love, as he eyed himself intently in the gla.s.s while performing the critical operation, "I'll just sound the old gentleman after dinner--one can do that sort of thing better over one's wine, perhaps, than at any other time: looks less formal too,"

added he, giving the cravat a knowing crease at the side; "and if it doesn't seem to take, one can just pa.s.s it off as if it was done for somebody else--some young gentleman at Laverick Wells, for instance."

So saying, he on with his white waistcoat, and crowned the conquering suit with a blue coat and metal b.u.t.tons. Returning his _Mogg_ to his dressing-gown pocket, he blew out the candles and groped his way downstairs in the dark.

In pa.s.sing the dining-room he looked in (to see if there were any champaign-gla.s.ses set, we believe), when he saw that he should not have an opportunity of sounding his intended papa-in-law after dinner, for he found the table laid for twelve, and a great display of plate, linen, and china.