Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 7

'F--o--o--r--rard!' screams old Tom, as he dives through the stiff fence and lands in the field outside the plantation. He might have saved his breath, for the hounds were beating him as it was. Mr. Sponge bores through the same place, little aided, however, by anything old Tom has done to clear the way for him, and the rest follow in his wake.

The field is now reduced to six, and two of the number, Mr. Spareneck and Caingey Thornton, become marked in their attention to our hero. Thornton is riding Mr. Waffles' crack steeple-chaser 'Dare-Devil,' and Mr. Spareneck is on a first-rate hunter belonging to the same gentleman, but they have not been able to get our friend Sponge into grief. On the contrary, his horse, though lathered goes as strong as ever, and Mr. Sponge, seeing their design, is as careful of him as possible, so as not to lose ground. His fine, strong, steady seat, and quiet handling, contrasts well with Thornton's rolling bucketing style, who has already begun to ply a heavy cutting whip, in aid of his spurs at his fences, accompanied with a half frantic 'g--u--r--r--r along!' and inquires of the horse if he thinks he stole him?

The three soon get in front; fast as they go, the hounds go faster, and fence after fence is thrown behind them, just as a girl throws her skipping-rope.

Tom and the whips follow, grinning with their tongues in their cheeks, Tom still screeching 'F--o--o--o--rard!--F--o--o--o--rard!' at intervals.

A big stone wall, built with mortar, and coped with heavy blocks of stone, is taken by the three abreast, for which they are rewarded by a gallop up Stretchfurrow pasture, from the summit of which they see the hounds streaming away to a fine gra.s.s country below, with pollard willows dotted here and there in the bottom.

'Water!' says our friend Sponge to himself, wondering whether Hercules would face it. A desperate black bullfinch, so thick that they could hardly see through it, is s.h.i.+rked by consent, for a gate which a countryman opens, and another fence or two being pa.s.sed, the splas.h.i.+ng of some hounds in the water, and the shaking of others on the opposite bank, show that, as usual, the willows are pretty true prophets.

Caingey, grinning his coa.r.s.e red face nearly double, and getting his horse well by the head, rams in the spurs, and flourishes his cutting whip high in air, with a 'g--u--u--ur along! do you think I'--the 'stole you' being lost under water just as Sponge clears the brook a little lower down.

Spareneck then pulls up.

When Nimrod had d.i.c.k Christian under water in the Whissendine in his Leicesters.h.i.+re run, and someone more humane than the rest of the field observed, as they rode on,

'But he'll be drowned.'

'Shouldn't wonder,' exclaimed another.

'But the pace,' Nimrod added, 'was too good to inquire.'

Such, however, was not the case with our watering-place c.o.c.k, Mr. Sponge.

Independently of the absurdity of a man risking his neck for the sake of picking up a bunch of red herrings, Mr. Sponge, having beat everybody, could afford a little humanity, more especially as he rode his horse on sale, and there was now no one left to witness the further prowess of the steed. Accordingly, he availed himself of a heavy, newly-ploughed fallow, upon which he landed as he cleared the brook, for pulling up, and returned just as Mr. Spareneck, a.s.sisted by one of the whips, succeeded in landing Caingey on the taking-off side. Caingey was not a pretty boy at the best of times--none but the most partial parents could think him one--and his clumsy-featured, short, compressed face, and thick, lumpy figure, were anything but improved by a sort of pea-green net-work of water-weeds with which he arose from his bath. He was uncommonly well soaked, and had to be held up by the heels to let the water run out of his boots, pockets, and clothes. In this undignified position he was found by Mr. Waffles and such of the field as had ridden the line.

'Why, Caingey, old boy! you look like a boiled porpoise with parsley sauce!' exclaimed Mr. Waffles, pulling up where the unfortunate youth was spluttering and getting emptied like a jug. 'Confound it!' added he, as the water came gurgling out of his mouth, 'but you must have drunk the brook dry.'

Caingey would have censured his inhumanity, but knowing the imprudence of quarrelling with his bread and b.u.t.ter, and also aware of the laughable, drowned-rat figure he must then be cutting, he thought it best to laugh, and take his change out of Mr. Waffles another time. Accordingly, he chuckled and laughed too, though his jaws nearly refused their office, and kindly transferred the blame of the accident from the horse to himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. CAINGEY THORNTON DOESN'T 'PUT ON STEAM ENOUGH']

'He didn't put on steam enough,' he said.

Meanwhile, old Tom, who had gone on with the hounds, having availed himself of a well-known bridge, a little above where Thornton went in, for getting over the brook, and having allowed a sufficient time to elapse for the proper completion of the farce, was now seen rounding the opposite hill, with his hounds cl.u.s.tered about his horse, with his mind conning over one of those imaginary runs that experienced huntsmen know so well how to tell, when there is no one to contradict them.

Having quartered his ground to get at his old friend the bridge again, he just trotted up with well-a.s.sumed gaiety as Caingey Thornton spluttered the last piece of green weed out from between his great thick lips.

'Well, Tom!' exclaimed Mr. Waffles, 'what have you done with him?'

'Killed him, sir,' replied Tom, with a slight touch of his cap, as though 'killing' was a matter of every-day occurrence with them.

'Have you, indeed!' exclaimed Mr. Waffles, adopting the lie with avidity.

'Yes, sir,' said Tom gravely; 'he was nearly beat afore he got to the brook. Indeed, I thought Vanquisher would have had him in it; but, however, he got through, and the scent failed on the fallow, which gave him a chance; but I held them on to the hedgerow beyond, where they hit it off like wildfire, and they never stopped again till they tumbled him over at the back of Mr. Plummey's farm-buildings, at Shapwick. I've got his brush,'

added Tom, producing a much tattered one from his pocket, 'if you'd like to have it?'

'Thank you, no--yes--no,' replied Waffles, not wanting to be bothered with it; 'yet stay,' continued he, as his eye caught Mr. Sponge, who was still on foot beside his vanquished friend; 'give it to Mr. What-de-ye-call-'em,'

added he, nodding towards our hero.

'Sponge,' observed Tom, in an undertone, giving the brush to his master.

'Mr. Sponge, will you do me the favour to accept the brush?' asked Mr.

Waffles, advancing with it towards him; adding, 'I am sorry this unlucky bather should have prevented your seeing the end.'

Mr. Sponge was a pretty good judge of brushes, and not a bad one of camphire; but if this one had smelt twice as strong as it did--indeed, if it had dropped to pieces in his hand, or the moths had flown up in his face, he would have pocketed it, seeing it paved the way to what he wanted--an introduction.

'I'm very much obliged, I'm sure,' observed he, advancing to take it--'very much obliged, indeed; been an extremely good run, and fast.'

'Very fair--very fair,' observed Mr. Waffles, as though it were nothing in their way; 'seven miles in twenty minutes, I suppose, or something of that sort.'

'_One_-and-twenty,' interposed Tom, with a laudable anxiety for accuracy.

'Ah! one-and-twenty,' rejoined Mr. Waffles. 'I thought it would be somewhere thereabouts. Well, I suppose we've all had enough,' added he, 'may as well go home and have some luncheon, and then a game at billiards, or rackets, or something. How's the old water-rat?' added he, turning to Thornton, who was now busy emptying his cap and mopping the velvet.

The water-rat was as well as could be expected, but did not quite like the new aspect of affairs. He saw that Mr. Sponge was a first-rate horseman, and also knew that nothing ingratiated one man with another so much as skill and boldness in the field. It was by that means, indeed, that he had established himself in Mr. Waffles' good graces--an ingratiation that had been pretty serviceable to him, both in the way of meat, drink, mounting, and money. Had Mr. Sponge been, like himself, a needy, penniless adventurer, Caingey would have tried to have kept him out by some of those plausible, admonitory hints, that poverty makes men so obnoxious to; but in the case of a rich, flouris.h.i.+ng individual, with such an astonis.h.i.+ng stud as Leather made him out to have, it was clearly Caingey's policy to knock under and be subservient to Mr. Sponge also. Caingey, we should observe, was a bold, reckless rider, never seeming to care for his neck, but he was no match for Mr. Sponge, who had both skill and courage.

Caingey being at length cleansed from his weeds, wiped from his mud, and made as comfortable as possible under the circ.u.mstances, was now hoisted on to the renowned steeple-chase horse again, who had scrambled out of the brook on the taking-off side, and, after meandering the banks for a certain distance, had been caught by the bridle in the branch of a willow--Caingey, we say, being again mounted, Mr. Sponge also, without hindrance from the resolute brown horse, the first whip put himself a little in advance, while old Tom followed with the hounds, and the second whip mingled with the now increasing field, it being generally understood (by the uninitiated, at least) that hounds have no business to go home so long as any gentleman is inclined for a scurrey, no matter whether he has joined early or late. Mr.

Waffles, on the contrary, was very easily satisfied, and never took the s.h.i.+ne off a run with a kill by risking a subsequent defeat. Old Tom, though keen when others were keen, was not indifferent to his comforts, and soon came into the way of thinking that it was just as well to get home to his mutton-chops at two or three o'clock, as to be groping his way about bottomless bye-roads on dark winter nights.

As he retraced his steps homeward, and overtook the scattered field of the morning, his talent for invention, or rather stretching, was again called into requisition.

'What have you done with him, Tom?' asked Major Bouncer, eagerly bringing his st.u.r.dy collar-marked cob alongside of our huntsman.

'Killed him, sir,' replied Tom, with the slightest possible touch of the cap. (Bouncer was no tip.)

'Indeed!' exclaimed Bouncer, gaily, with that sort of sham satisfaction that most people express about things that can't concern them in the least.

'Indeed! I'm deuced glad of that! Where did you kill him?'

'At the back of Mr. Plummey's farm-buildings, at Shapwick,' replied Tom; adding, 'but, my word, he led us a dance afore we got there--up to Ditchington, down to Somerby, round by Temple Bell Wood, cross Goosegreen Common, then away for Stubbington Brooms, skirtin' Sanderwick Plantations, but scarce goin' into 'em, then by the round hill at Camerton leavin' great Heatherton to the right, and so straight on to Shapwick, where we killed, with every hound up--'

'G.o.d bless me!' exclaimed Bouncer, apparently lost in admiration, though he scarcely knew the country; 'G.o.d bless me!' repeated he, 'what a run! The finest run that ever was seen.'

'Nine miles in twenty-five minutes,' replied Tom, tacking on a little both for time and distance.

'_B-o-y_ JOVE!' exclaimed the major.

Having shaken hands with, and congratulated Mr. Waffles most eagerly and earnestly, the major hurried off to tell as much as he could remember to the first person he met, just as the cheese-bearer at a christening looks out for some one to give the cheese to. The cheese-getter on this occasion was Doctor Lotion, who was going to visit old Jackey Thompson, of Woolleyburn. Jackey being then in a somewhat precarious state of health, and tolerably advanced in life, without any very self-evident heir, was obnoxious to the attentions of three distinct litters of cousins, some one or other of whom was constantly 'baying him.' Lotion, though a sapient man, and somewhat grinding in his practice, did not profess to grind old people young again, and feeling he could do very little for the body corporate, directed his attention to amusing Jackey's mind, and anything in the shape of gossip was extremely acceptable to the doctor to retail to his patient.

Moreover, Jackey had been a bit of a sportsman, and was always extremely happy to see the hounds--_on anybody's land but his own_.

So Lotion got primed with the story, and having gone through the usual routine of asking his patient how he was, how he had slept, looking at his tongue, and reporting on the weather, when the old posing question, 'What's the news?' was put, Lotion replied, as he too often had to reply, for he was a very slow hand at picking up information.

'Nothin' particklar, I think, sir,' adding, in an off-hand sort of way, 'you've heard of the greet run, I s'pose, sir?'

'Great run!' exclaimed the octogenarian, as if it was a matter of the most vital importance to him; 'great run, sir; no, sir, not a word!'

The doctor then retailed it.

Old Jackey got possessed of this one idea--he thought of nothing else.

Whoever came, he out with it, chapter and verse, with occasional variations. He told it to all the 'cousins in waiting'; Jackey Thompson, of Carrington Ford; Jackey Thompson, of Houndesley; Jackey Thompson, of the Mill; and all the Bobs, Bills, Sams, Harrys, and Peters, composing the respective litters;--forgetting where he got it from, he nearly told it back to Lotion himself. We sometimes see old people affected this way--far more enthusiastic on a subject than young ones. Few dread the aspect of affairs so much as those who have little chance of seeing how they go.