oing, 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 hi