"A young Country Squire requested her hand,
Whose joy 'twas to ride by her side,
So domestic a prospect what girl could withstand,
She became, truly willing, his bride."
Then would follow the interest of making acquaintance with the country, with all classes of people in it, with the coverts, lanes, and bridle-paths, the lovely little bits that most people never see at all, to say nothing of the pleasant companionship of hounds, horses, and hunt-servants.
Captain Percy Williams's advice to a young M. F. H. was, "Stay at home with your wife and your hounds," but how can a man do so, if his wife is all agog to drag him to London or abroad directly the hunting season is over? Hounds should be a summer as well as a winter pastime, but whether they are so or not depends almost entirely on the wife of their possessor.
When all is said and done, two people who are young, happy, and like-minded, can scarcely find an enjoyment greater than that of going out hunting together with their own hounds. To be starting on a nice horse, on a fine morning, for one long day of happiness, is a delight that can only be enhanced by sharing it with a kindred soul, and best of all if that soul is a husband's.
Then the greetings from all classes at the meet, the feeling of giving pleasure to so many, the pride in the hounds, and the skill of the huntsman, tempered though it be with anxiety for the success of the day's sport, all go to warm the heart and fire the imagination as nothing else does.
And as the hours pass imperceptibly, and the brown woods open their vistas, and yellowing pastures alternate with dark hedgerows, and the chiming of hounds with the distant holloas, there is the anticipation of an
"Oak Room with a blazing fire