288 Hunting Countries of England. 



at all exciting, you concentrate all your interest into 

 their attainment of tliis end ; and, if you have the 

 power to absorb your whole self and enjoyment in 

 sympathy, you may be as delighted as the huntsman 

 himself when the run is over — perhaps a good deal 

 more ! But if you can live with hounds, it is always 

 keen delight to see them run; and, though hold- 

 ing that the pleasure is more elastic on turf than 

 on tillage ground, you must be hard indeed to please 

 if a clever pack working up to their fox over 

 plough is no treat to you. There is such a wide 

 difference, too, in the scenting properties of various 

 arable soils that it would be as absurd to place them 

 all in one class as to form an opinion of how any 

 country carries a scent from a single day^s experience 

 of it. In Lord Ferrers^ country alone, for instance, 

 two very distinct conditions of ploughed land are to be 

 found. The Leak Hills on the east are cold unprofit- 

 able ground, on which to ask hounds to do their work 

 well and quickly ; whereas in the Donington district 

 they can often lay themselves down to a teeming scent, 

 and can almost always hunt their way fairly along. 

 In this latter part foxes are by no means unusually 

 difficult to kill; for, added to the fact that there is 

 generally a steady scent, hounds have the advantage of 

 being free from an overwhelming field on their backs. 

 Except when a meet occurs about Clifton — where his 

 northernmost corner approaches the town of Notting- 

 ham — there is no source from which Lord Ferrers can 

 collect a gathering round him. There are a certain 

 number of gentlemen^s seats scattered about his 

 country ; but there are no towns of any size within 



