260 HUNTING. 



by nose, and when they got to a ride half the pack would leave the 

 cry, hop round to the next ride, cock up their ears till they heard 

 the others bringing it on, and then throw themselves in at his 

 brush. In the latter days of Joe Smith, Tom Rose hunted them, 

 and for many years afterwards had the whole control over them. 

 He bred them much larger but never altered their character. He 

 was a fine joyous old fellow as ever cheered a hound, and no one 

 knew better what he was about. Being once asked why he bred 

 his hounds so wild, 4 Why ? ' says he, ' I'll tell you why. Nine 

 days out often I am in a wood. Every fox I find I mean to kill, 

 and these hounds are the sort that will have him. An open country 

 and a woodland park are different things. What you call a good 

 pack will never catch a bad fox, and as I want to hunt him instead 

 of his hunting uie^ I think my hounds best calculated for my 

 country.' . . . After the old Duke's death, the late Lord South- 

 ampton took them, and Tom Rose continued to hunt them. They 

 were kept much in the same form, and with the same result ; in 

 short, he killed his foxes in the woodlands, and they beat him in 

 the open. 1 



There is plenty of woodland still in this country, which is 

 not now so large as it was in Lord Southampton's day and 

 before then, but large enough to give three days a week. But 

 besides woodland there is grass, and there is plenty of jumping. 

 Along the northern boundary, marching with the Pytchley, lies 

 the best of the ground, which only a Pytchley nag and a bold 

 rider will cross in safety. The north-western part is the best 

 and grassiest ; here you may gallop westward over the Bicester 

 borders, or northward over the Pytchley towards Shuckburgh. 

 On the eastern side, round Towcester and Blisworth, there is 

 more plough, and the fences are mostly smaller, though in 

 the Towcester district there are some formidable bullfinches, 

 regular ' stitchers ' ! In the centre of the country run two 

 pleasant vales, though rather interfered with now by the railway. 

 The woodlands lie to the south and east, and are generally 

 hunted on the Wednesday, Friday being devoted to the central 

 vales, and Monday to the Northamptonshire quarter. Whittle- 

 bury and Salsey Forests give, according to ' Brooksby,' * the 



1 The Post and the Paddock, ch. xiv. 



