HUNTING IN THE MIDLANDS 157 



boots. Snug are their coftee-rooms, luxurious their 

 beds, genial their whole atmosphere. It is just 

 possible that if you were to take your wife to such 

 an establishment as the Lion, she would complain 

 that an aroma of tobacco smoke pervaded the 

 atmosphere. But the hunting hotel is conspicuously 

 a bachelor's house. Its proprietor, or proprietress, 

 does not lay himself or herself out for ladies and 

 ladies' maids. It is their object to make single 

 gentlemen, and gentlemen who enjoy the temporary 

 felicity of singleness, at home. If it is your first 

 visit, you are met in a manner which clearly intim- 

 ates that you were expected. If you are an old 

 hahitue you find that all your wants are anticipated, 

 and all your peculiar fancies known. The waiter 

 understands exactly — marvellous is the memory of 

 this race of men — what you like for breakfast : 

 whether you prefer a " wet fish " or a " dry : " and 

 recollects to a nicety your particular idea of a 

 dinner. Under any circumstances a week's hunting 

 is a good and healthy recreation : but it is difficult 

 to enjoy a week's hunting more perfectly than in 

 one of these hostelries, which have not, I rejoice to 

 to say, yet been swept away by the advancing tide 

 of modern improvement. 



Of whom did our company consist ? We were 

 not a party of Meltonian squires, such as it would 



