The newly engaged couple, Francesca Harding and Blue Ridge huntsman Guy Allman, return to the meet at the end of a surprising day. / Nancy Kleck photoBlue Ridge huntsman Guy Allman transformed last Saturday’s well-attended Junior Meet from just another great day in the field to far loftier levels. He chose a moment during his first draw to propose marriage to Francesca Harding. The lady said, “Yes,” and Allman presented her with a ring.
This was no spur-of-the-moment proposal I was to learn. The day’s affair was a premeditated, meticulously planned campaign of romance on the huntsman’s part that warmed even the hearts of the grizzled and jaundiced old-timers in the field.
It was the first draw of the day—the Fox Spring Woods—and the usual thrusters were content to follow the dozen juniors leading the first flight. We were strung out in a serpentine on the numerous and twisty trails through the covert, occasionally seeing the huntsman and hounds reverse direction ahead of us. One moment the object of his affection was riding in the field just ahead of me, and the next moment I could see her riding next to the huntsman, who had switched-back ahead of us, working the covert thoroughly. Moments later, Field Master Anne McIntosh stopped, turned, and announced to the field that Guy had proposed to Fran, and she said, “Yes!”
“Anne was in on it,” said Guy, “but she thought I’d wait until after hounds came in at the end of the day. That was the plan, but I couldn’t wait. So I asked Anne to send Fran up. Anne said, ‘What! Now?’ I said, ‘Yes! Now!’”
When Fran got the word that Guy wanted to see her, the first thing she thought was, “Oh, he’s lost a shoe, and he wants my horse.”
A beaming Fran returned to us in the field smiling from ear-to-ear, and the best wishes, hugs, and chatter were interrupted only by the cry of hounds who had found a fox. We ran for the better part of the next hour, probably on more than one fox, until the huntsman paused to collect hounds and give them a breather in the warming temperatures.
“I was very surprised,” Fran admitted to me the next day. “He even has the wedding planned, and I only know that it will be somewhere in Scotland!”
After another three hours of hunting, hounds returned to the meet where Guy had a case of their favorite Champagne waiting and tulip Champagne glasses to go around. There were more toasts and good wishes followed by the gracious hospitality of field member Ted Guarriello, our host, who invited the followers in for lunch. Through his high vaulted windows to the east, the views toward the Blue Ridge were softened by moisture from the previous day’s rain steaming off the fields and bathing the entire prospect in a hazy glow—all befitting the special feelings of the day’s events both sporting and otherwise!
Nancy Kleck photo
Posted January 14, 2013
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