86 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



with what patience we may, but the interest thickens 

 when we come to Glen Gorse. What a wonderful 

 covert this is ! Placed close to a highroad, and that 

 a busy one, not very large but very thick in its under- 

 growth, for more than a hundred years Glen Gorse 

 has been drawn by fox-hounds from October to x\pril, 

 and seldom drawn blank. So thick was the under- 

 growth that in Mr. Osbaldeston's time the foot-people 

 were accustomed to go in with hounds to drive out the 

 fox. Indeed they horrified Nimrod, who, like all sports- 

 men, was something of a purist in hunting matters, 

 by their very unorthodox conduct. It was the custom 

 to collect shillings from the field — I presume before 

 the fox was found — as payment for the services of 

 these beaters. 



Whenever I wait in the road outside Glen Gorse, 

 I recall the incident of the Leicestershire country lads 

 approaching Nimrod, who was the neatest and most 

 precise of men. " If you threw Apperley into a horse- 

 pond, he would come out clean and well dressed," 

 declared one of his friends. He also liked things in 

 order in the hunting field, so when they came to him 

 for his shilling he read them a little lecture which 

 must, I think, have considerably mystified a pre- 

 board-school rustic. " Fox-hunting," said Nimrod, 

 " has already lost much of its native wildness, but if 

 men, not hounds, are to find our foxes we must soon 

 leave them to men to kill, as every covert in the 

 country would be surrounded by foot-people and 

 every chance of a fox getting away would be lost." 

 Whether, without the bestowal of shillings, some part 

 of this prophecy has not come true, I leave it to those 

 who know this side of the country to determine. At 

 all events we must agree that Nimrod was right. 

 Leicestershire foxes are wonderfully bold in facing a 



