' The landscape seemed all alike: north, south, east, and west, equally
indifferent.
'Curse the thing,' said Mr. Sponge, adjusting himself in his saddle, and
looking about; 'I haven't the _slightest_ idea where I am. I'll blow the
horn, and see if that will bring any one.'
So saying, he applied the horn to his lips, and blew a keen, shrill blast,
that spread over the surrounding country, and was echoed back by the
distant hills. A few lost hounds cast up from various quarters, in the
unexpected way that hounds do come to a horn. Among them were a few branded
with S,[4] who did not at all set off the beauty of the rest.
''Ord rot you, you belong to that old ruffian, do you?' said Mr. Sponge,
riding and cutting at one with his whip, exclaiming, 'Get away to him, ye
beggar, or I'll tuck you up short.'
He now, for the first time, saw them together in anything like numbers, and
was struck with the queerness and inequality of the whole. They were of all
sorts and sizes, from the solemn towering calf-like fox-hound down to the
little wriggling harrier.
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