Peewits screamed and hovered over land that seemed to grow little but rushes and water-grasses, with occasional heather.

The ground poached and splashed as he went; worst of all, time was nearly up.
In vain Sponge strained his eyes in search of Dundleton Tower.

In vain he fancied every high, sky-line-breaking place in the distance was the much-wished-for spot.

Dundleton Tower was no more a tower than it was a town, and would seem to have been christened by the rule of contrary, for it was nothing but a great flat open space, without object or incident to note it.
Sponge, however, was not destined to see it.
As he went floundering along through an apparently interminable and almost bottomless lane, whose sunken places and deep ruts were filled with clayey water, which played the very deuce with the cords and brown boots, the light note of a hound fell on his ear, and almost at the same instant, a something that he would have taken for a dog had it not been for the note of the hound, turned, as it were, from him, and went in a contrary direction.
Sponge reined in the piebald, and stood transfixed.

It was, indeed, the fox!--a magnificent full-brushed fellow, with a slight tendency to grey along the back, and going with the light spiry ease of an animal full of strength and running.
'I wish I mayn't ketch it,' said Sponge to himself, shuddering at the idea of having headed him.
It was, however, no time for thinking.