232 HUNTING. 



hereabouts is mostly heavy plough, and intersected by wide and 

 deep drains. A stout, short-legged horse is wanted here, not 

 fast, but a good jumper. For the rest, a nag that will carry 

 you well to the Quorn will not disgrace you with the Cottes- 

 more. But he must be a strong as well as a well-bred one, for 

 the pastures are heavier here than the Melton grass, and the 

 country generally much wilder and less bothered by scientific 

 agriculturists. The stiffest part of it all is the Skeffington 

 lordship, which you will probably cross (if you and your horse 

 can) from Launde or Tilton Woods. The ' oxers ' hereabouts 

 are terrific ; the hills are steep ; and in most of the valleys are 

 diabolical freaks of nature known as ' bottoms,' almost amount- 

 ing to ravines, some of which no horse yet foaled could be put 

 at with any chance of getting over, even with a fall. ' A wide- 

 spread region, scarcely inhabited ; ground that carries a scent 

 in all weathers ; woodlands which breed a travelling race ; and 

 mile upon mile of untracked grass, where a fox will meet 

 nothing more terrifying than a bullock.' So ' Brooksby ' sum- 

 marises this glorious country, and those who have known the 

 pleasures of a gallop from Ranksboro Gorse to Laxton's 

 Covert, from Owston Wood to John o' Gaunt, or from Witham 

 Common over the Vale of Catmose, will probably agree with 

 him that there is no sport in England like that shown by the 

 Cottesmore bitches. 



No pack of hounds in England, not even its great rival the 

 Quorn, has so memorable a history as the Pytchley. It has 

 even, as one may say, a political history of its own, having, 

 as no one will ever forget, been the cause of Homeric laughter 

 in the House of Commons, on an occasion which no biographer 

 of Mr. John Bright must ever pretend to pass by. The name 

 comes from an ancient Elizabethan house, built by a certain 

 Sir Eustace Isham about 1570, and pulled down by the late 

 George Payne. The lords of the manor, ' Cecil ' ^ tells us, held 

 it of the Crown on condition of their keeping dogs to destroy 

 wolves, foxes, polecats, and such like creatures. But that ex- 



1 Records of the Chase, ch. vii. 



