92 A COVERT SIDE. 



to draw for tlie first fox, tlie far-famed gorse of 

 Ucklcby. 



Meanwhile, the bulk of the field had moved onward, 

 taking the fence to the south of the gorse, and were 

 riding slowly down hill along its western border ; but so 

 soon as the hounds were in covert, Fairfax and the Rus- 

 sian trotted gently forward, and soon joined the group 

 of veterans, who waited coolly and collectedly at the 

 northern corner, above the fence on the ridge, assured 

 by the sportsman's instinct that if the gorse held a 

 fox — and when did Uckleby not hold one — he would 

 go away somewhere near the north-eastern corner, at 

 which stood or rather sat, one of the whips, still as a 

 carved statue on his horse, which was equally motion- 

 less, and which gave no token, save in the erected ears 

 and the occasional quivering of the whole frame, how 

 deeply it felt the excitement. 



Before them stretched away a long, long slope, so 

 gentle that it seemed almost a plain, divided by huge 

 bull-finches, and occasional barriers of heavy timber, 

 into pastures of fifty and sixty acres in extent, with- 

 out an acre of plough-land or fallow in sight, till, at 

 about five miles distance, the occasional gleam of blue 

 water, and the long line of pollard willows told the 

 presence of a large brook, while several smaller streams 

 were indicated midway by fringes of alder, and an 

 ozier bed or two. Beyond the brook there was another 

 long gentle acclivity, headed far, far away to the 

 southward by the majestic woods and turreted heights 

 of Belvoir ; and surging up, nearly north-east of the 

 point at which they stood, into a gentle knoll, crested 

 by a small patch of high wood-land and a long stunted 

 covert, apparently distant from the gorse they were 

 drawing by some nine or ten miles, 



^'I am glad you have come," said Beaufort, who 

 had joined the veterans. " This, Colonel Fairfax, is 

 the finest bit of country in all Leicestershire — that is 



