Jack being thus disposed of, Sponge, with increased confidence, rose in his stirrups, easing the redoubtable Hercules; and patting him on the shoulder, at the same time that he gave him the gentlest possible touch of the spur, exclaimed, 'By the powers, we'll show these old Flat Hats the trick!' He then commenced humming:
Mister Sponge, the raspers taking,
Sets the junkers' nerves a shaking;
and riding cheerfully on, he at length found himself on the confines of a wild rough-looking moor, with an undulating range of hills in the distance.
Frostyface and Lord Scamperdale here for the first time diverged from the line the hounds were running, and made for the neck of a smooth, flat, rather inviting-looking piece of ground, instead of crossing it, Sponge, thinking to get a niche, rode to it; and the 'deeper and deeper still' sort of flounder his horse made soon let him know that he was in a bog. The impetuous Hercules rushed and reared onwards as if to clear the wide expanse; and alighting still lower, shot Sponge right overhead in the middle.
'That's cooked your goose!' exclaimed his lordship, eyeing Sponge and his horse floundering about in the black porridge-like mess.
'Catch my horse!' hallooed Sponge to the first whip, who came galloping up as Hercules was breasting his way out again.
'Catch him yourself,' grunted the man, galloping on.
A peat-cutter, more humane, received the horse as he emerged from the black sea, exclaiming, as the now-piebald Sponge came lobbing after on foot, 'A, sir! but ye should niver set tee to ride through sic a place as that!'