416 The Hunting Countries of England. 



to the liunt. Tliey are remarkable for true symmetry, 

 thorough working qualities, and striking fashion. 

 The Kennels are at Milton Ernest, near Oakley 

 Station, about half a dozen miles from Bedford. 



A fair notion of the Oakley Country — or at least of 

 its more open portion — may be gathered from the 

 window of a railway carriage as it bears you from 

 Bedford to Wellingboro'. Pay the Bxtra shillings for 

 a seat in a Pullman car, and you may almost dwell at 

 the fences and give time for the pack to feather over a 

 fallow. A quiet undulating surface of tillage, glorious 

 in summer, dull in winter : cut and partitioned by easy 

 thorn fences with ditches that, like all others, look 

 delightfully insignificant from the cushioned seat of a 

 train, but that vary up to unexpected width when 

 under trial from the pigskin — this is the view pre- 

 sented. You see nothing of the woods; and your 

 soul, unless mated to agriculture, is not likely to 

 be deeply stirred as you whisk through the corn-fields. 

 There will be none of the blood-rushing that, after 

 four summer months of London and with the Sundays 

 half through Trinity, makes you rise to the gleam of 

 the Harboro^ pastures, and may even tempt you to 

 frighten a sleepy fellow-passenger out of his wits with 

 an unmuffled view holloa. But there is honest prose 

 about the view. It looks like steady foxhunting — 

 noses down and sterns waving, a fox to be wearied 

 down, and a pack to be marked and watched for the 

 work it is doing. And such is truly the Oakley 

 country. It is mostly flat; it is very mostly plough ; 

 and the rest is woodland. But it is a right good 

 hound-country; and a fair horse must be ridden there. 



