42 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



Owston Wood is in the middle of some delightful 

 country. Two miles of grass and flying fences, not 

 neatly cut and laid, but for the most part in a natural 

 condition, rough but therefore not impassable, separate 

 Owston and Lady Wood. It is a stiff four miles in the 

 other direction to Tilton, and there is a rough but 

 likely line over the meadows of Marefield and their 

 rail-mended fences to John o' Gaunt. The man with 

 a hunter that knows his business and that can jump 

 rails at a pinch can cross most of this country if he will 

 trust himself to the guidance of the pack. Probably 

 too he who rides to hunt, but has not unlimited blood 

 horses up to fourteen stone at three hundred guineas 

 apiece, will see as much sport from Owston Wood and 

 its suburb. The Little Wood, as from any coverts in 

 the Shires. 



Some readers may think it rather slow to dwell on 

 these big coverts when there are others more famous 

 and surrounded by perfect country much nearer to 

 Melton. But there is a precedent for the preference. 

 " Lord Lonsdale and all the gentlemen like the Owston 

 country best of any ... its quite Leicestershire 

 fencing, very little plough, good scenting, quite open 

 country, and every kind of fence." There are, too, 

 fixtures which mean the same kind of country, such as 

 Launde Abbey and its woods, where Major Dawson is 

 a careful preserver of foxes. These woods have of late 

 seasons been the point of some of Mr. Fernie's best 

 runs. The Abbey is itself a notable feature, a fine 

 Elizabethan house buried in the woods with remnants 

 of the older Abbey built into it. It is now twenty 

 years or more ago since the tenants of the Abbey were 

 summoned from the breakfast table by the sound of 

 the horn, and ran out just in time to see hounds 

 breaking up a fox on the lawn under the windows. 



