Six months had pass’d, and not a lady seen,
With just this love, ’twixt fifty and fifteen;
All seem’d his doctrine or his pride to shun,
All would be woo’d before they would be won;
When the chance naming of a race and fair
Our ’Squire disposed to take his pleasure there,
The Friend profess’d, “although he first began
To hint the thing, it seem’d a thoughtless plan;
The roads, he fear’d, were foul, the days were short,
The village far, and yet there might be sport.”