he horse with the spur as he spoke.

'Faith, but if he was as well on his legs as he is in his wind, he'd not be
amiss,' rejoined Sponge.

So they cantered and trotted, and trotted and cantered away, Sponge
thinking he could afford pace as well as Jawleyford. Indeed, a horse has
only to become a hack, to be able to do double the work he was ever
supposed to be capable of.

But to the meet.

Scrambleford Green was a small straggling village on the top of a somewhat
high hill, that divided the vale in which Jawleyford Court was situated
from the more fertile one of Farthinghoe, in which Lord Scamperdale lived.

It was one of those out-of-the-way places at which the meet of the hounds,
and a love feast or fair, consisting of two fiddlers (one for each
public-house), a few unlicensed packmen, three or four gingerbread stalls,
a drove of cows and some sheep, form the great events of the year among a
people who are thoroughly happy and contented with that amount of gaiety.
Think of that, you 'used up' young gentlemen of twenty, who have exhausted
the pleasures of the world! The hounds did not come to Scrambleford Green
often, for it was not a favourite meet; and when they did come, Frosty and
the men generally had them pretty much to themselves. This day, however,
was the exception; and Old Tom Yarnley, whom age had bent nearly double,
and who hobbled along on two sticks, declared that never in the course of
his recollection, a period extending over the best part of a century, had
he seen such a 'sight of red coats' as mustered that morning at
Scrambleford Green. It seemed as if there had been a sudden rising of
sportsmen. What brought them all out? What brought Mr. Puffington, the
master of the Hanby hounds, out? What brought Blossomnose again? What Mr.
Wake, Mr. Fossick, Mr. Fyle, who had all been out the day before? Reader,
the news had spread throughout the country that there was a great writer
down; and they wanted to see what he would say of them--they had come to
sit for their portraits, in fact. There was a great gathering, at least for
the Flat Hat Hunt, who seldom mustered above a dozen. Tom Washball came, in
a fine new coat and new flat-fliped hat with a broad binding; also Mr.
Sparks, of Spark Hall; Major Mark; Mr. Archer, of Cheam Lodge; Mr. Reeves,
of Coxwell Green; Mr. Bliss, of Boltonshaw; Mr. Joyce, of Ebstone; Dr.
Capon, of Calcot; Mr. Dribble, of Hook; Mr. Slade, of Three-Burrow Hill;
and several others