A WEEK AT MELTON 47 



Two of the most notable coverts, the drawing of 

 which is looked forward to by Melton people, are 

 Burbidge's and Sherbrooke's. The former was made 

 by a stout old yeoman, who in the course of his life saw 

 more sport on fewer horses than falls to the lot of most 

 men. He kept but a small stud, and each horse lasted 

 him for many seasons. His brother was well known 

 to a past generation of Meltonians as the landlord of 

 the George at Melton. It is not so very long ago that 

 old Mr. Burbidge used to come out to see his covert 

 drawn, and be as excited as a boy when a fox was 

 handsomely found. The covert, a blackthorn brake 

 only a mile from Melton, is situated in a bend of the 

 river Wreake. Needless to say, the covert was meant 

 to be a portal to the Quorn and Cottesmore countries, 

 and often opens the way for a gallop over some of the 

 best of one or other of these hunt territories. In the 

 same way, Sherbrooke's, on the banks of the Smite, 

 commands the Belvoir Vale, and forms a link between 

 the Quorn and such Belvoir coverts as Piper's Hole or 

 Harby Hills, with a nice bit of flat country towards 

 the hills, with fences which have somewhere been not 

 inaptly described as " stake and bound fair but 

 fierce." 



The brooks of this Wednesday country are its chief 

 drawback to those who do not like water, or whose 

 horses refuse it. The Smite, with its steep and rough 

 banks, has turned many a good horse and half drowned 

 many a bold man. The same may be said of the 

 other streams, but the Smite is the best known and 

 the most feared. 



There are still a few coverts which I have not men- 

 tioned : Casthorpe, which, it is said, was planted by 

 the late Duke to hide a ploughed field from the castle 

 windows, and some of the Vale coverts ; but I leave 



