‘Oh, damn it, there he is!’ exclaimed Mr Spareneck, jumping up from the breakfast table, and nearly sweeping the contents off by catching the cloth with his spur.

‘Where?’ exclaimed half a dozen voices, amid a general rush to the windows.

‘What a flight!’ exclaimed little Miss Martindale, whispering into Miss Beauchamp’s ear: ‘I’m sure anybody may have him for me,’ though she felt in her heart that he was far from bad looking.

‘I wonder how long he’s taken to put on that choker,’ observed Mr Spareneck, eyeing him intently, not without an inward qualm that he had set himself a more difficult task than he imagined, to ‘cut him down,’ especially when he looked at the noble animal he bestrode, and the masterly way he sat him.

‘What a pair of profligate boots,’ observed Captain Whitfield, as our friend now passed his lodgings.

‘It would be the duty of a right-thinking man to ride over a fellow in such a pair,’ observed his friend, Mr Cox, who was breakfasting with him.

‘Ride over a fellow in such a pair!’ exclaimed Whitfield. ‘No well-bred horse would face such things, I should think.’

‘He seems to think a good deal of himself!’ observed Mr Cox, as Sponge cast an admiring eye down his shining boot.

‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ replied Whitfield; ‘perhaps he’ll have the conceit taken out of him before night.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll be in time, old boy!’ exclaimed Mr Waffles to himself, as looking down from his bedroom window, he espied Mr Sponge passing up the street on his way to cover. Mr Waffles was just out of bed, and had yet to dress and breakfast.

One man in scarlet sets all the rest on the finger, and without troubling to lay ‘that or that’ together, they desert their breakfasts, hurry to the stables, get out their horses, and rattle away, lest their watches should be wrong, or some arrangement made that they are ignorant of. The hounds, too, were on, as was seen, as well by their footmarks, as by the bob, bob, bobbing of sundry black caps above the hedges, on the Borrowdon Road, as the huntsman and whips proceeded at that pleasant post-boy trot, that has roused the wrath of so many riders against horses that they could not get to keep in time.

Now look at old Tom, cocked jauntily on the spicy bay, and see what a different Tom he is to what he was last night. Instead of a battered, limping, shabby-looking, little old man, he is all alive, and rises to the action of his horse, as though they were all one. A fringe of grey hair protrudes beneath his smart velvet cap, which sets off a weather-beaten, but keen and expressive face, lit up with little piercing black eyes. See how chirpy and cheery he is; how his right arm keeps rising and falling with his whip, beating responsive to the horse’s action with the butt-end against his thigh. His new scarlet coat imparts a healthy hue to his face, and good boots and breeches hide the imperfections of his bad legs. His hounds seem to partake of the old man’s gaiety, and gather round his horse, or frolic forward on the grassy sidings of the road, till, getting almost out of earshot, a single ‘yooi doit! -- Arrogant!’ -- or ‘here again, Brusher!’ brings them cheerfully back to whine and look in the old man’s face for applause. Nor is he chary of his praise. ‘G--oood betch -- Arrogant! -- g--oood betch!’ says he, leaning over his horse’s shoulder towards her, and jerking his hand to induce her to proceed forward again. So the old man trots gaily on, now making of his horse, now coaxing a hound, now talking to a ‘whip,’ now touching or taking off his cap as he passes a sportsman, according to the estimation in which he holds him.

As the hounds reach Whirleypool Windmill, there is a grand rush of pedestrians to meet them. First comes a velveteen-jacketed, leather-legginged keeper, with whom Tom (albeit suspicious of his honesty) thinks it prudent to shake hands; the miller and he, too, greet; and forthwith a black bottle with a single glass make their appearance, and pass current with the company. Then the earth-stopper draws nigh,