"SET YE UP A STANDARD IN THE LAND" 177 



his search on the following day, proposing that we 

 make the rounds of the larger establishments to- 

 gether. I had been strongly attracted to him from 

 the first, and of course gladly assented to his prop- 

 osition. That was the commencement of as firmly 

 rooted an attachment as could well exist between 

 men. Together we tramped about those wonderful 

 woodland pastures by day, and together we roomed 

 at night. The evenings passed all too quickly around 

 a roaring, open fire with gracious hosts and charming 

 hostesses, and when we would retire to our room 

 for the night we would compare notes and exchange 

 ideas as to the merits or faults of what had been 

 seen in the fields and boxes. Horses and dogs came 

 into the discussion, but Shorthorns always Short- 

 horns. Grasses, orchards, homes, stone walls, roads 

 and gardens, the whole life of the people in that 

 American Yorkshire, in fact, all came in for a share 

 of consideration, and presently the glow of a great 

 enthusiasm in reference to all those things took full 

 possession of my youthful spirit. Some faint reflec- 

 tions of that first great wave of interest in the 

 better things that go with country living still possess 

 my soul, but the primal inspiration came with all- 

 compelling force under the tutelage of this great 

 Virginian. We were in the land of my fathers. 



