82 The Hunting Countries of England. 



find Jolin o^ Gaunt, used to be mucli tlie same thing — 

 only the disagreeable element was in the ascendant, 

 for the Marfield Brook couldn't be jumped. Happily 

 they have changed that, bridged the chasm, and left 

 the road open for the line that has made John 

 o' Gaunt immortal — if only the new railway does not 

 spoil all. We are getting into a country now that 

 requires control over pen and pencil. The quill 

 jumps as to the spur, and comment and description 

 fling against the bit — remembering that often of late 

 they have been curbed to write the clumsiness of 

 plough as '' good sporting country,^' and to title slow 

 scenting fallows as "honest hunting ground.'^ 

 Honest forsooth ! Is not every foot of soil turned by 

 the ploughshare sufpressio veri in its wickedest form ? 

 In front of John o' Gaunt are thousands of acres 

 which never grew a quartern loaf or brought grist to 

 any mill save the grazier's and the butcher's. Hounds 

 can run, and horses must gallop, if a fox will cross 

 the Twyford Brook to Burrough Hill, or thread the 

 brookside to Owston Wood. There is other country 

 as good in the Shires — for you can't go beyond 

 perfection ; but we have yet to ride over, or learn of, 

 better. No, not even from the Coplow of Billesdon, 

 or from Lord Moreton's covert at Cold Newton on the 

 way thither, superlative as is the ride across the 

 nullah-broken plains to Tilton Wood, or over the 

 smoother acres to Norton Gorse and Kibworth. 

 Billesdon Coplow is, perhaps, the best memorialised 

 landmark in the whole Quom country. It has had 

 its deserts in song and say during each era of master- 

 ship for generations past, and is still as prominent a 



