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Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour.
R.S. Surtees
[Illustration: _Mr. Sponge completely scatters his Lordship_]
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved
to end of text.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ELCHO,
IN GRATITUDE
FOR MANY SEASONS OF EXCELLENT SPORT WITH HIS HOUNDS,
ON THE BORDER.
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS
OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE
The author gladly avails himself of the convenience of a Preface for
stating, that it will be seen at the close of the work why he makes such a
characterless character as Mr. Sponge the hero of his tale.
He will be glad if it serves to put the rising generation on their guard
against specious, promiscuous acquaintance, and trains them on to the noble
sport of hunting, to the exclusion of its mercenary, illegitimate
off-shoots.
_November 1852_
CHAPTER I
OUR HERO
[Illustration]
It was a murky October day that the hero of our tale, Mr. Sponge, or Soapey
Sponge, as his good-natured friends call him, was seen mizzling along
Oxford Street, wending his way to the West. Not that there was anything
unusual in Sponge being seen in Oxford Street, for when in town his daily
perambulations consist of a circuit, commencing from the Bantam Hotel in
Bond Street into Piccadilly, through Leicester Square, and so on to
Aldridge's, in St. Martin's Lane, thence by Moore's sporting-print shop,
and on through some of those ambiguous and tortuous streets that, appearing
to lead all ways at once and none in particular, land the explorer, sooner
or later, on the south side of Oxford Street.
Oxford Street acts to the north part of London what the Strand does to the
south: it is sure to bring one up, sooner or later. A man can hardly get
over either of them without knowing it. Well, Soapey having got into Oxford
Street, would make his way at a squarey, in-kneed, duck-toed, sort of pace,
regulated by the bonnets, the vehicles, and the equestrians he met to
criticize; for of women, vehicles, and horses, he had voted himself a
consummate judge. Indeed, he had fully established in his own mind that
Kiddey Downey and he were the only men in London who _really_ knew anything
about, horses, and fully impressed with that conviction, he would halt, and
stand, and stare, in a way that with any other man would have been
considered impertinent. Perhaps it was impertinent in Soapey--we don't mean
to say it wasn't--but he had done it so long, and was of so sporting a gait
and cut, that he felt himself somewhat privileged. Moreover, the majority
of horsemen are so satisfied with the animals they bestride, that they cock
up their jibs and ride along with a 'find any fault with either me or my
horse, if you can' sort of air.
Thus Mr. Sponge proceeded leisurely along, now nodding to this man, now
jerking his elbow to that, now smiling on a phaeton, now sneering at a
'bus. If he did not look in at Shackell's or Bartley's, or any of the
dealers on the line, he was always to be found about half-past five at
Cumberland Gate, from whence he would strike leisurely down the Park, and
after coming to a long check at Rotten Row rails, from whence he would pass
all the cavalry in the Park in review, he would wend his way back to the
Bantam, much in the style he had come. This was his summer proceeding.
Mr. Sponge had pursued this enterprising life for some 'seasons'--ten at
least--and supposing him to have begun at twenty or one-and-twenty, he
would be about thirty at the time we have the pleasure of introducing him
to our readers--a period of life at which men begin to suspect they were
not quite so wise at twenty as they thought. Not that Mr. Sponge had any
particular indiscretions to reflect upon, for he was tolerably sharp, but
he felt that he might have made better use of his time, which may be
shortly described as having been spent in hunting all the winter, and in
talking about it all the summer. With this popular sport he combined the
diversion of fortune-hunting, though we are concerned to say that his
success, up to the period of our introduction, had not been commensurate
with his deserts. Let us, however, hope that brighter days are about to
dawn upon him.
Having now introduced our hero to our male and female friends, under his
interesting pursuits of fox and fortune-hunter, it becomes us to say a few
words as to his qualifications for carrying them on.
Mr. Sponge was a good-looking, rather vulgar-looking man. At a
distance--say ten yards--his height, figure, and carriage gave him somewhat
of a commanding appearance, but this was rather marred by a jerky, twitchy,
uneasy sort of air, that too plainly showed he was not the natural, or what
the lower orders call the _real_ gentleman. Not that Sponge was shy. Far
from it. He never hesitated about offering to a lady after a three days'
acquaintance, or in asking a gentleman to take him a horse in over-night,
with whom he might chance to come in contact in the hunting-field. And he
did it all in such a cool, off-hand, matter-of-course sort of way, that
people who would have stared with astonishment if anybody else had hinted
at such a proposal, really seemed to come into the humour and spirit of the
thing, and to look upon it rather as a matter of course than otherwise.
Then his dexterity in getting into people's houses was only equalled by the
difficulty of getting him out again, but this we must waive for the present
in favour of his portraiture.
In height, Mr. Sponge was above the middle size--five feet eleven or
so--with a well borne up, not badly shaped, closely cropped oval head, a
tolerably good, but somewhat receding forehead, bright hazel eyes, Roman
nose, with carefully tended whiskers, reaching the corners of a well-formed
mouth, and thence descending in semicircles into a vast expanse of hair
beneath the chin.
Having mentioned Mr. Sponge's groomy gait and horsey propensities, it were
almost needless to say that his dress was in the sporting style--you saw
what he was by his clothes. Every article seemed to be made to defy the
utmost rigour of the elements. His hat (Lincoln and Bennett) was hard and
heavy. It sounded upon an entrance-hall table like a drum. A little magical
loop in the lining explained the cause of its weight. Somehow, his hats
were never either old or new--not that he bought them second-hand, but
when he got a new one he took its 'long-coat' off, as he called it, with a
singeing lamp, and made it look as if it had undergone a few probationary
showers.
When a good London hat recedes to a certain point, it gets no worse; it is
not like a country-made thing that keeps going and going until it declines
into a thing with no sort of resemblance to its original self. Barring its
weight and hardness, the Sponge hat had no particular character apart from
the Sponge head. It was not one of those punty ovals or Cheshire-cheese
flats, or curly-sided things that enables one to say who is in a house and
who is not, by a glance at the hats in the entrance, but it was just a
quiet, round hat, without anything remarkable, either in the binding, the
lining, or the band, but still it was a very becoming hat when Sponge had
it on. There is a great deal of character in hats. We have seen hats that
bring the owners to the recollection far more forcibly than the generality
of portraits. But to our hero.
That there may be a dandified simplicity in dress, is exemplified every day
by our friends the Quakers, who adorn their beautiful brown Saxony coats
with little inside velvet collars and fancy silk buttons, and even the
severe order of sporting costume adopted by our friend Mr. Sponge is not
devoid of capability in the way of tasteful adaptation. This Mr. Sponge
chiefly showed in promoting a resemblance between his neck-cloths and
waistcoats. Thus, if he wore a cream-coloured cravat, he would have a
buff-coloured waistcoat, if a striped waistcoat, then the starcher would be
imbued with somewhat of the same colour and pattern. The ties of these
varied with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching
fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped
starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat,
unpretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant,
flyaway, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His coats were
of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets outside, and generally
either Oxford mixture or some dark colour, that required you to place him
in a favourable light to say what it was.
His waistcoats, of course, were of the most correct form and material,
generally either pale buff, or buff with a narrow stripe, similar to the
undress vests of the servants of the Royal Family, only with the pattern
run across instead of lengthways, as those worthies mostly have theirs, and
made with good honest step collars, instead of the make-believe roll
collars they sometimes convert their upright ones into. When in deep
thought, calculating, perhaps, the value of a passing horse, or considering
whether he should have beefsteaks or lamb chops for dinner, Sponge's thumbs
would rest in the arm-holes of his waistcoat; in which easy, but not very
elegant, attitude he would sometimes stand until all trace of the idea that
elevated them had passed away from his mind.
In the trouser line he adhered to the close-fitting costume of former days;
and many were the trials, the easings, and the alterings, ere he got a pair
exactly to his mind. Many were the customers who turned away on seeing his
manly figure filling the swing mirror in 'Snip and Sneiders',' a monopoly
that some tradesmen might object to, only Mr. Sponge's trousers being
admitted to be perfect 'triumphs of the art,' the more such a walking
advertisement was seen in the shop the better. Indeed, we believe it would
have been worth Snip and Co.'s while to have let him have them for nothing.
They were easy without being tight, or rather they looked tight without
being so; there wasn't a bag, a wrinkle, or a crease that there shouldn't
be, and strong and storm-defying as they seemed, they were yet as soft and
as supple as a lady's glove. They looked more as if his legs had been blown
in them than as if such irreproachable garments were the work of man's
hands. Many were the nudges, and many the 'look at this chap's trousers,'
that were given by ambitious men emulous of his appearance as he passed
along, and many were the turnings round to examine their faultless fall
upon his radiant boot. The boots, perhaps, might come in for a little of
the glory, for they were beautifully soft and cool-looking to the foot,
easy without being loose, and he preserved the lustre of their polish, even
up to the last moment of his walk. There never was a better man for getting
through dirt, either on foot or horseback, than our friend.
To the frequenters of the 'corner,' it were almost superfluous to mention
that he is a constant attendant. He has several volumes of 'catalogues,'
with the prices the horses have brought set down in the margins, and has a
rare knack at recognizing old friends, altered, disguised, or disfigured as
they may be--'I've seen that rip before,' he will say, with a knowing shake
of the head, as some woe-begone devil goes, best leg foremost, up to the
hammer, or, 'What! is that old beast back? why he's here every day.' No man
can impose upon Soapy with a horse. He can detect the rough-coated
plausibilities of the straw-yard, equally with the metamorphosis of the
clipper or singer. His practised eye is not to be imposed upon either by
the blandishments of the bang-tail, or the bereavements of the dock.
Tattersall will hail him from his rostrum with--'Here's a horse will suit
you, Mr. Sponge! cheap, good, and handsome! come and buy him.' But it is
needless describing him here, for every out-of-place groom and
dog-stealer's man knows him by sight.