Five-and-twenty minutes best pace over downs is calculated to try the
mettle of anything; and, long before the leading hounds reached
Cockthropple Dean, the field was choked by the pace. Sir Harry had long
been tailed off; both the brothers Spangles had dropped astern; the horse
of one had dropped too; Sawbones, the doctor's, had got a stiff neck;
Willing, the road surveyor, and Mr. Lavender, the grocer, pulled up
together. Muddyman, the farmer's four-year-old, had enough at the end of
ten minutes; both the whips tired theirs in a quarter of an hour; and in
less than twenty minutes Watchorn and Sponge were alone in their glory, or
rather Sponge was in his glory, for Watchorn's horse was beat.
'Lend me your horn!' exclaimed Sponge, as he heard by the hammer and
pincering of Watchorn's horse, it was all U P with him.
The horse stopped as if shot; and getting the horn, Mr. Sponge went on, the
brown laying himself out as if still full of running. Cockthropple Dean was
now close at hand, and in all probability the fox would not leave it.
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