HUNTING LOCALITIES 165 



in consequence be trouble with the farmers, or unwar- 

 ranted expense incurred by the hunt. 



And that the Shires are well gated is probably well 

 known to all hunting men. Occupation roads are 

 exceedingly numerous, and very often where there is a 

 strong boundary fence between one farm and the next 

 there is also a mode of exit by gate. We thoroughly 

 realised this when staying near Market Harborough in 

 the month of July not many years ago. The weather 

 was exceedingly hot, and our host was in the habit of 

 riding for a couple of hours every morning at a very 

 early hour. We accompanied him on several mornings, 

 visiting many of the most famous coverts in the district, 

 and invariably riding by country lanes, occupation 

 roads, and through fields. The high roads we never 

 seemed to touch, and though the country was at a 

 casual glance quite impracticable to a comparative 

 stranger who wished to ride from one covert to another 

 by means of gates, our friend, who knew it well, was 

 able to find his way everywhere, and was never pounded, 

 not even when he showed us the first few miles of 

 the line taken in the great Waterloo run during the 

 late Colonel Anstruther Thomson's mastership of the 

 Pytchley. 



As regards the hunt just named Market Harborough 

 is on its north-eastern border, and though much of 

 the best of the Pytchley country is within reach of 

 the town, the hunting man who takes up his quarters 

 at Harborough will probably hunt as often with Mr. 

 Fernie's pack as with any other, while for the 

 Pytchley itself there are other places which are much 

 more central. These will be mentioned just now, but 

 first of all reference must be made to the Cottesmore 

 country, of which Brooksby wrote: "For the truest 



