ough sic a place as that!'

Sponge, having generously rewarded the man with a fourpenny piece, for
catching his horse and scraping the thick of the mud off him, again
mounted, and cantered round the point he should at first have gone; but his
chance was out--the farther he went, the farther he was left behind; till
at last, pulling up, he stood watching the diminishing pack, rolling like
marbles over the top of Rotherjade Hill, followed by his lordship hugging
his horse round the neck as he went, and the huntsman and whips leading and
driving theirs up before them.

'Nasty jealous old beggar!' said Sponge, eyeing his lessening lordship
disappearing over the hill too. Sponge then performed the sickening
ceremony of turning away from hounds running; not but that he might have
plodded on on the line, and perhaps seen or heard what became of the fox,
but Sponge didn't hunt on those terms. Like a good many other gentlemen, he
would be first, or nowhere.

If it was any consolation to him, he had plenty of companions in
misfortune. The line was dotted with horsemen back to the brick-fields. The
first person he overtook wending his way home in the discontented, moody
humour of a thrown-out man, was Mr. Puffington master of the Hanby hounds;
at whose appearance at the meet we expressed our surprise.

Neighbouring masters of hounds are often more or less jealous of each
other. No man in the master-of-hound world is too insignificant for
censure. Lord Scamperdale _was_ an undoubted sportsman; while poor Mr.
Puffington thought of nothing but how to be thought one. Hearing the
mistaken rumour that a great writer was down, he thought that his chance of
immortality was arrived; and, ordering his best horse, and putting on his
best apparel, had braved the jibes and sneers of Jack and his lordship for
the purpose of scraping acquaintance with the stranger. In that he had been
foiled: there was no time at the meet to get introduced, neither could he
get jostled beside Sponge in going down to the cover; while the quick find,
the quick get away, followed by the quick thing we have described, were
equally unfavourable to the undertaking. Nevertheless, Mr. Puffington had
held on beyond the brick-fields; and had he but persevered a little
farther, he would have had the satisfaction of helping Mr. Sponge out of
the bog.

Sponge now, seeing a red coat a little before, trotted on, and quickly
overtook a fine nippy, satin-stocked, dandified l