FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 223 



Princess Victoria for a guest, and has slept five 

 dukes in one night, has little occasion to com- 

 plain of neglect. The good wine that needs no 

 bush still makes his cellar known, and no one 

 should criticise English cooking until he has 

 dined once at the Haycock. Nowhere is the 

 inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be 

 found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying per- 

 fection ; and nowhere, in short, can one find so 

 completely the solid comfort of hostelry life. 

 Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn ; with 

 a marvellous larder, through whose glass-closed 

 side the guest sees visions of joints and jams 

 and pastry in lavish profusion ; backed by a 

 stable-yard where boys are always exercising 

 good horses ; and flanked by a yardful of quaint 

 clipped yews, — the old house at Wansford (in 

 spite of its dull-looking road front) is worth a 

 visit from those who would get out of the sight 

 and sound of steam, and see the old, old coun- 

 try life of England. The visitor is .not num- 

 bered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the 

 modern hotel ; but the old fiction of host and 



