eyford had accompanied him, to introduce him. Not
that Sponge was shy, but still he thought that Jawleyford's presence would
do him good.

Lord Scamperdale's hunt was not the most polished in the world. The hounds
and the horses were a good deal better bred than the men. Of course his
lordship gave the _tone_ to the whole; and being a coarse, broad,
barge-built sort of man, he had his clothes to correspond, and looked like
a drayman in scarlet. He wore a great round flat-brimmed hat, which being
adopted by the hunt generally, procured it the name of the 'F.H.H.,' or
'Flat Hat Hunt.' Our readers, we dare say, have noticed it figuring away,
in the list of hounds during 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