30 TJie Pylchley Hiuit^ Past and Present, [chap. i. 



ever at work, and heads tlie fox, probably unconsciously 

 to himself, or the animal disappears in some unexpected 

 drain at the very moment when the acquisition of his 

 brush seems assured. Though large coverts like Sywell 

 Wood and Wilma Park have been shorn of much of 

 their acreage within the last few years, plantations and 

 small spinnies have greatly increased ; and as they 

 mostly contain a few hares and rabbits, the scent of the 

 fox loses some of its aroma when mixed up with that of 

 other game, and tends to stop hounds and favour the 

 escape of the object of pursuit. Xo covert in the whole 

 of the Pytchley open country is looked upon with more 

 respect, and also with more dread, by the hahiiue, than 

 the well known " Sywell Wood.^' It has earned the first 

 from being a sure '^find" when all other places have 

 failed, as is sometimes the case during the latter part of 

 the season. The second arises from the adhesive nature 

 of the circumjacent soil, and from the fact that the foxes 

 frequenting it, when sent upon a journey by hounds, 

 almost invariably return after a short '^ outing/^ Many 

 a fine run has had its origin in Sywell Wood, but few 

 take a higher rank than that which, in 1816, ended in a 

 kill at Ashley by Welland, when Sir Justinian Isham 

 carried his knife in his hand for the last twenty minutes, 

 declaring, '*' that he and no other should cut off the brush,^' 

 which he did. This must have covered a distance of, as 

 the crow flies, about seventeen miles. 



A bad fall in November, 1817, during a two hours' 

 run from Brampton Wood, so shook Lord Althorp, that 

 at the end of that season, to the great regret of every 

 Pytchley man, he resigned the Mastership into the hands 

 of his friend, Sir Charles Knightley. 



i 



