38 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



two isolated bits of country, there is very little level 

 ground in Leicestershire. 



However, when we have hunted for a short time, we 

 shall appreciate the advantages of this Tilton side of 

 the Cottesmore, and we shall recognise that, though 

 there are bigger crowds with the Cottesmore than with 

 any fashionable pack, except perhaps with the Pytchley 

 on Wednesdays, yet they hinder the hounds and im- 

 pede one another less than might be expected. The 

 steep hills, the deep complicated bottoms and the big 

 woods seem to swallow them up, while the stiff fences, 

 met with after a gallop up hill, weed out all but the 

 best men and the stoutest horses, for when hounds 

 run in this division of the country they can always 

 beat horses. If fox-hunting, indeed, were merely 

 galloping over smooth grass in the wake of a racing 

 pack, it would not have the charm it has, and this 

 rougher country of the Cottesmore is attractive to 

 hundreds. 



It is in the nature of Englishmen, and perhaps 

 especially of hunting people, to grumble, and you will 

 hear people complaining of the difficulties of riding to 

 hounds over or through the stretch of woodland 

 country that lies between the Tugby and Skeffington 

 districts, or Owston Wood, or round Launde Abbey, 

 but they will come all the same because they are 

 sportsmen and sportswomen, and because they love 

 the variety of hunting, and know that, if it were not 

 for its disappointments, we might as well ride after a 

 red herring. The pleasure of seeing a fox well found 

 and steadily hunted, of seeing hounds as they draw 

 nearer their fox running harder, and then at last, as 

 the scent fails with a tiring fox, come to hunting 

 again till they run into him at last, is in itself the most 

 perfect of sports. Thus, although, when they have 



