The Quorn. 67 



may be taken as nearer six. Better still, hounds 

 almost always leave off equally near at home — and 

 so, from every point of view, hunting may be done 

 as comfortably from Melton as from any place in the 

 world. Standing, as it does, a central point in a sea 

 of grass, in a country where foxhunting is all in all, 

 and where squires, farmers, and even keepers, have 

 been reared to worship the little red animal, the best 

 meets of each pack are those in the neighbourhood 

 of Melton. The Quorn, Cottesmore, and Belvoir 

 countries all run up to a common apex in the town of 

 Melton Mowbray; and arrange their meets so that 

 each day one or other of them shall be in its 

 neighbourhood. To breakfast each morning at 9.30 

 (with still a marginal half hour for the sluggard), and 

 yet be in good time at the covert- side, is not given to 

 many hunting quarters — and might well encourage 

 the late hours which, whether devoted to society or 

 to tobacco, seldom fail in the end to make their mark 

 on the hardest and the boldest. But men who belong- 

 to the latter class know this too well. They know, 

 too, that they have come to Leicestershire to hunt 

 and to ride ; and that, if their power and zest to do 

 this once fails, the land will be but a desert to them 

 — and so they go to bed early, leaving those to sit up 

 to whom the chase offers nothing more sterling than 

 another school for scandal, another field for small 

 talk. The canter to covert, too ! That " it is better 

 fun riding to covert in Leicestershire than hunting 

 elsewhere ^^ is as solemnly true as ever, albeit the 

 gallant author has been beguiled into another county. 

 Mile upon mile of swinging turf — if only you know 



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