CHAPTER VII.
MR. SPONGE’S SPORTING TOUR.
Mr. Surtees, the writer of the sporting novels, possessed considerable powers of invention, which he indulged—amongst other vagaries—in giving names to most of the characters in his books, which served to enlighten his readers as to their physical and mental peculiarities, and never more happily than when he christened the hero of this sporting tour Mr. Soapy Sponge. “Mr. Sponge,” says our author, “wished to be a gentleman without knowing how;” but what Mr. Sponge did know was how to sponge upon everybody with whom he could force an acquaintance, and this he effected with surprising success. Hunting and good hunting quarters were the objects of Mr. Sponge’s machinations, and upon a half-hearted invitation from a Mr. Jawleyford, of Jawleyford Court, an invitation given without an idea that it would be accepted (as sometimes happens), Mr. Sponge found himself installed in the ancestral mansion of the Jawleyfords. Mr. Jawleyford was “one of the rather numerous race of paper-booted, pen-and-ink landowners,” says Mr. Surtees, “whose communications with his tenantry were chiefly confined to dining with them twice a year in the great entrance-hall after the steward, Mr. Screwemtight, had eased them of their rents.” Then Mr. Jawleyford would shine forth the very impersonification of what a landlord ought to be. Dressed in the height of fashion, he would declare that the only really happy moments of his life were those when he was surrounded by his tenantry.
In the background of this admirable drawing we see Mr. Jawleyford’s portrait, flanked by his ancestors, on canvas and in armour, hanging on the panelled walls of his gorgeous home. The variety of character in the “chawbacons,” each a marked individuality, contrasts effectually with his quasi fashionable landlord. For the first banquet at Jawleyford Court, “Mr. Sponge,” says the author, “made himself an uncommon swell.” His dress is minutely described, and faithfully depicted by Leech, in the etching in which we see the sponger conducting a very portly Mrs. Jawleyford, followed by her daughters, to the dining-room. The young ladies who have entered the drawing-room “in the full fervour of sisterly animosity,” according to the author, seem—in the lovely group that Leech makes of them—to have speedily made up their quarrel, as their entwined arms and pretty, happy faces prove. The solemn butler, who looks with awe at his aristocratic master, is in Leech’s truest vein, while Mr. Jawleyford himself is simply perfect. In the footmen and page the illustration is less successful; they seem to approach, if not to reach, caricature.
When Mr. Sponge found himself in good quarters, no hint however strong, no looks however cold, no manner however unpleasant, would move him, until he had provided himself with others to his liking. Under the impression that he was rich, the Misses Jawleyford set their caps at him. Amelia and Emily rivalled each other in tender attentions to the adventurer, who, after hesitating as to which of them he should throw the handkerchief to, fixed upon Miss Amelia, who found her sister “in the act of playing the agreeable” with Mr. Sponge as she “sailed” into the drawing-room before dinner; then, “with a haughty sort of sneer and toss of the head to her sister, as much as to say, ‘What are you doing with my man?’—a sneer that suddenly changed into a sweet smile as her eye encountered Sponge’s—she just motioned him off to a sofa, where she commenced a sotto-voce conversation in the engaged-couple style.”
During his stay at Jawleyford Court, Mr. Sponge’s time was passed in hunting, smoking all over the house—a habit the owner detested—and in making love to Miss Amelia; taking care, however, not to commit himself until he had discovered from papa what the settlements were to be. We who are behind the scenes know that Jawleyford Court is “mortgaged up to the chimney-pots,” and that Mr. J. is over head and ears in debt besides. We know also that Mr. Sponge is impecunious, his hunters are hired; he is, in fact, as his author describes him, “a vulgar humbug.” “Jawleyford began to suspect that Sponge might not be the great ‘catch’ he was represented,” says the author. No doubt in finding himself baffled in his attempts to sound his host upon the subject of settlements, Mr. Sponge also “began to suspect” that neither of the Misses Jawleyford would be the “catch” that he wanted. Still, he held on to his quarters in defiance of the attempts to get rid of him. He was removed from the best bedroom to one in which it was impossible to light a fire, or, rather, to endure it when it was alight, because of an incurable smoky chimney. He was given poor food and corked wine, still he stayed, until he had provided himself with a temporary home at the house of a hunting gentleman named Puffington.
Mr. Puffington, who made Sponge’s acquaintance at the covert-side where Lord Scamperdale’s hounds met, “got it into his head” that Mr. Sponge was a literary man, whose brilliant pen was about to be employed in the interest of fox-hunting in general, and of certain runs of Mr. Puffington’s hounds in particular. Mr. Puffington “was the son of a great starch-maker at Stepney.” Puffington, senior, made a large fortune, which enabled his son to become the owner of Hanby House, and of the “Mangeysterne—now Hanby-Hounds,” because he thought they would give him consequence. Our author says, Mr. Puffington “had no natural inclination for hunting,” but he seems to have become M.F.H. so that he might entertain some of the sporting friends he had made at college, such “dashing young sparks as Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, Lord Legbail, now Earl of Loosefish,” and so on.
My space, or, rather, the want of it, prevents my telling how it was that Mr. Sponge “awoke and found himself famous” as an author. In conjunction with a friend, who steered him through the spelling and grammar, he concocted an article for the Swillingford Patriot—Grimes, editor—which “appeared in the middle of the third sheet, and was headed, ‘Splendid Run with Mr. Puffington’s Hounds.’” Mr. Grimes was ably assisted in his editorial duties by “his eldest daughter, Lucy—a young lady of a certain age, say liberal thirty—an ardent Bloomer, with a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with which she generally filled the Poet’s Corner.”
As Mr. Puffington quite expected to be immortalized in some work of general circulation, his indignation knew no bounds when he found himself relegated to a corner of the county paper, and all his hopes of his doings being read by “the Lords Loosefish, the Sir Toms and Sir Harrys of former days” grievously disappointed. Never, surely, were disgust, disappointment, and rage more perfectly expressed than in the second portrait of Mr. Puffington: not only the face, but the whole figure—one can fancy how the hand in the pocket of the dressing-gown is clenched—denotes the surprise and exasperation of the miserable man.
Mr. Sponge’s literary effort has “done for him” with Mr. Puffington. He must go. Easier said than done.