4 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



but it is quite possible ; it is all over grass, and, with 

 the possible exception of Wistow Park, all the coverts 

 are artificial. Yet the fox would have travelled about 

 twenty miles and crossed from the Pytchley to Mr. 

 Fernie's, run the whole breadth of that hunt, and 

 finished in the Quorn. A man could ride all the way 

 on sound turf, and, if he pleased, jump every fence. 

 It would be possible to trace many other lines as good 

 or even better. This has been chosen simply because 

 every covert and the intervening country are well 

 known to most people who have hunted in Leicester- 

 shire. 



But neither hounds nor huntsmen would be what 

 they are, nor could sport be what it is, if all the Mid- 

 land hunting country were like this. There are parts 

 of it as rough as anything in the provinces, and with 

 deep woodlands where stout foxes are bred. These 

 foxes wander far afield in the spring-time, and give 

 those magnificent runs that live in the history of the 

 hunting-field. It is here, in these less well-known and 

 less popular districts, that the actors are made perfect 

 in their parts, and the drama of fox-hunting rehearsed, 

 till on some February morning there is a full dress 

 performance, with some hundreds of the best horsemen 

 and horsewomen in England to see the whole action, 

 or at least to trace the unfolding of the plot. 



There must be something in hunting in the Shires 

 which attracts people. Even granting that some 

 people go because others do, because it is the fashion, 

 yet how did Melton or Market Harborough become 

 fashionable ? Their popularity is no new thing. A 

 hundred years ago men crowded to a fixture at Oadby, 

 at Croxton Park, or at Welford, just as they do now, 

 and just as they will do so long as hunting is a sport 

 at all. The fields with the Quorn, the Belvoir, or the 



