The Quorn. 81 



season especially^ they are more than likely to hold 

 foxes. Barkby Holt has for fifty years or more been 

 one of the tightest strongholds of the Friday country. 

 It is, like Ashby Pasture, a wood of perhaps fifty 

 acres, with great density of undergrowth, and, when 

 looked after as it has been during Mr. Brooks^ time, 

 is a nursery and never failing reservoir of foxes. It 

 stands in a district peculiarly known as the Barkby- 

 and- Scrapt oft- country j and is perhaps more gene- 

 rally popular among- the Quornites than any ground 

 in the Hunt. The greater proportion of farms in the 

 neighbourhood are grass in its purest and simplest 

 form; and the fences, not set very far from each 

 other, are all not only jumpable, but '^ cry out to be 

 jumped '' — so fair and clean and negotiable are they. 

 From Barkby Holt to Scraptoft Gorse is a twenty 

 minutes that will teach a four-year-old, or make an 

 octogenarian think himself as young as ever. Next 

 to Barkby is Baggrave — whose energetic owner is 

 never content with 07ie fox in six acres. By some 

 magic he tempts them, till we have seen five in succes- 

 sion break in February, from the Prince of Wales^ 

 Covert. Hounds away in a moment with the last, 

 their original choice — the brook at the bottom of the 

 valley, only to be jumped here and there — five 

 hundred horsemen and the devil to pay — for they 

 hate that brook and three are in already ! ^Tis as 

 quick a scenting country as any in the Hunt, and in 

 five minutes you are in the Twyford country. A long 

 pair of spurs, the best horse in your stable (perhaps a 

 luncheon at the Hall), and it will come easy to you. 

 Such is Baggrave. The meet at Lowesby Hall, the 



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