6o FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



there is no field in England where there are so many 

 men and women who mean to ride to hounds as will 

 be seen in the lane by Cream Gorse, in the road near 

 Ashby Pastures, in the village street of Twyford or 

 Thorpe Satchville, or any other well-known spot 

 within its borders from November to March, 



Saturday is a day which perhaps is looked forward 

 to as keenly as any. If the five preceding days have 

 left us a little jaded, the very names of the Saturday 

 meets are enough to stir us up to renewed zest for 

 hunting. There is sometimes a choice, but one 

 Saturday will generally find us in the Melton country 

 of the Cottesmore and the next in the Belvoir Vale, 

 or, tempted by the country round Wardley Wood and 

 the prospect of a gallop round Belton or Ridlington, 

 we may ride the fifteen miles to Beaumont Chase or 

 Stoke Dry. In any case there will be sport if there 

 is scent. On the character of the country I need not 

 dwell, for it is on the whole similar to the rest of the 

 country of the Belvoir or the Cottesmore, which is 

 within reach of the town of Melton. The Belvoir 

 Vale is sometimes deep, and this gives its fences, which 

 are severely neat with a stern primness about the 

 strong, well-laid binders and the clean-cut ditches, 

 a greater terror. Even good men have failed to face 

 the Vale. 



The Cottesmore, on the other hand, will offer you 

 a more unkempt country, but to my mind a certain 

 wildness and roughness adds to the pleasure of hunt- 

 ing. Fox-hunting is essentially a sport which appeals 

 to the underlying poetic side of our nature, and I 

 cannot imagine a true sportsman being unmoved by 

 its picturesque aspect. If this were not so, why not 

 pursue the carted deer or the red herring ? Whyte- 

 Melville has said that there is much of the poet in the 



