Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 34

'Here goes, then,' said Jack, 'for another plate,' suiting the action to the word, and running with his plate to the sausage-dish.

'Have a hot one,' exclaimed Mrs. Springwheat, adding, 'it will be done in a minute.'

'No, thank ye,' replied Jack, with a shake of the head, adding, 'I might be done in a minute too.'

'He'll wait for you, I suppose?' observed Sponge, addressing Jack.

'Not so clear about that,' replied Jack, gobbling away; 'time and my lord wait for no man. But it's hardly the half-hour yet,' added he, looking at his watch.

He then fell to with the voracity of a hound after hunting. Sponge, too, made the most of his time, as did two or three others who still remained.

'Now for the jumping-powder!' at length exclaimed Sponge, looking round for the bottle. 'What shall it be, cherry or neat?' continued he, pointing to the two. 'Cherry for me,' replied Jack, squinting and eating away without looking up.

'I say _neat_,' rejoined Sponge, helping himself out of the French bottle.

'You'll be hard to hold after that,' observed Jack, as he eyed Sponge tossing it off.

'I hope my horse won't,' replied Sponge, remembering he was going to ride the resolute chestnut.

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'You'll show us the way, I dare say,' observed Jack.

'Shouldn't wonder,' replied Sponge, helping himself to a second gla.s.s.

'What! at it again!' exclaimed Jack, adding, 'Take care you don't ride over my lord.'

'I'll take care of the old file,' said Sponge; 'it wouldn't do to kill the goose that lays the golden what-do-ye-call-'ems, you know--he, he, he!'

'No,' chuckled Jack;' 'deed it wouldn't--must make the most of him.'

'What sort of a humour is he in to-day?' asked Sponge.

'Middlin',' replied Jack, 'middlin'; he'll abuse you most likely, but that you mustn't mind.'

'Not I,' replied Sponge, who was used to that sort of thing.

'You mustn't mind me either,' observed Jack, sweeping the last piece of sausage into his mouth with his knife, and jumping up from the table. 'When his lordship rows I row,' added he, diving under the side-table for his flat hat.

'Hark! there's the horn!' exclaimed Sponge, rushing to the window.

'So there is,' responded Jack, standing transfixed on one leg to the spot.

'By the powers, they're away!' exclaimed Sponge, as his lordship was seen hat in hand careering over the meadow, beyond the cover, with the tail hounds straining to overtake their flying comrades. Tw.a.n.g--tw.a.n.g--tw.a.n.g went Frostyface's horn; crack--crack--crack went the ponderous thongs of the whips; shouts, and yells, and yelps, and whoops, and halloas, proclaimed the usual wild excitement of this privileged period of the chase. All was joy save among the gourmands a.s.sembled at the door--they looked blank indeed.

'What a sell!' exclaimed Sponge, in disgust, who, with Jack, saw the hopelessness of the case.

'Yonder he goes!' exclaimed a lad, who had run up from the cover to see the hunt from the rising ground.

'Where?' exclaimed Sponge, straining his eyeb.a.l.l.s.

'There!' said the lad, pointing due south. 'D'ye see Tommy Claychop's pasture? Now he's through the hedge and into Mrs. Starveland's turnip field, making right for Bramblebrake Wood on the hill.'

'So he is,' said Sponge, who now caught sight of the fox emerging from the turnips on to a gra.s.s field beyond.

Jack stood staring through his great spectacles, without deigning a word.

'What shall we do?' asked Sponge.

'Do?' replied Jack, with his chin still up; 'go home, I should think.'

'There's a man down!' exclaimed a groom, who formed one of the group, as a dark-coated rider and horse measured their length on a pasture.

'It's Mr. Sparks,' said another, adding, 'he's always rolling about.'

'Lor', look at the parson!' exclaimed a third, as Blossomnose was seen gathering his horse and setting up his shoulders preparatory to riding at a gate.

'Well done, old 'un!' roared a fourth, as the horse flew over it, apparently without an effort.

'Now for Tom!' cried several, as the second whip went galloping up on the line of the gate.

'Ah! he won't have it!' was the cry, as the horse suddenly stopped short, nearly shooting Tom over his head. 'Try him again--try him again--take a good run--that's him--there, he's over!' was the cry, as Tom flourished his arm in the air on landing.

'Look! there's old Tommy Baker, the rat-ketcher!' cried another, as a man went working his arms and legs on an old white pony across a fallow.

'Ah, Tommy! Tommy! you'd better shut up,' observed another: 'a pig could go as fast as that.'

And so they criticized the laggers.

'How did my lord get his horse?' asked Spraggon of the groom who had brought them on, who now joined the eye-straining group at the door.

'It was taken down to him at the cover,' replied the man. 'My lord went in on foot, and the horse went round the back way. The horse wasn't there half a minute before he was wanted; for no sooner were the hounds in at one end than out popped the fox at t'other. Sich a whopper!--biggest fox that ever was seen.'

'They are all the biggest foxes that ever were seen,' snapped Mr. Sponge.'

I'll be bound he was not a bit bigger than common.'

'I'll be bound not, either,' growled Mr. Spraggon, squinting frightfully at the man, adding, 'go, get me my hack, and don't be talking nonsense there.'

Our friends then remounted their hacks and parted company in very moderate humours, feeling fully satisfied that his lordship had done it on purpose.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FINEST RUN THAT EVER WAS SEEN

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