WEEK AT MARKET HARBOROUGH 91 



" Squire." It is an excellent covert, and picturesque 

 withal. Indeed, the whole of this country gives us 

 on a good day a series of most attractive hunting 

 pictures, with its grassy valleys and bland, easy slopes 

 leading up to the hills, and the little circular spinneys 

 in the park which before now have been known to 

 hold a fox. 



Friday is for the dweller at Market Harborough a 

 day which is bound to be pleasant, for if he does not 

 find himself hunting in the country I have been de- 

 scribing, he will in every alternate week have the 

 Pytchley at his very doors. Clipston, Oxendon and 

 Farndon are all within five miles of the town, and all 

 are within hail of Waterloo Gorse, one of the most 

 famous in the Shires. It is perhaps a covert which 

 lives on the memory of the past, and even now when 

 wire has to a certain extent obviated the necessity 

 for rails, it is surrounded by a very stiff bit of country 

 which no one can be blamed for shirking. The fences 

 are just too big for a brave man on a good horse, 

 even with the stimulus of pace. In the Thursday 

 country, of which I have just been writing, a hard 

 rider who is properly mounted can, when hounds run 

 hard, cross the fences in fair safety, but in parts of 

 the Oxendon and Clipston country he cannot, and 

 thus the enjoyment of what is an excellent scenting 

 and pleasant bit of grass is reduced. Brooksby, who 

 certainly cannot be accused of pusillanimity in the 

 matter of fences, declares that this country is a 

 hindrance to the prosperity of Harborough. Yet 

 there are lines which are possible enough. Suppose, 

 for example, that the fox crosses the road towards 

 Farndon (and I have seen him do so ere now), you 

 can by using the road shirk the three or four stiffly 

 fenced fields that intervene between you and the top 



