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England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames England, when at last I came to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt.

England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames England, when at last I came to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt.

Still less will he appreciate the intense spiritual atmosphere, that makes the real difference between an ikon and an inn-sign, and makes the inns of England, noble and national as they are, relatively the homes of Christian charity but hardly a Christian faith. He can hardly bring himself to believe that Syrians can be as fond of religion as Englishmen of beer.

Over the door hung an inn-sign, and into the space where once the sign had swung was now inserted a lantern, in which was ensconced, well hidden from view by its patinated glass sides, an electric light. This was one of the necessary concessions to modern convenience, for no lamp nurtured on oil would pierce those genuinely opaque panes, and illuminate the path to the gate.

At the "Saracen's Head" in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue. We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique inn-sign.

There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand, looking so light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture reflected on the thin mist of night. On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars, with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in England.

Now, upon the left-hand side of the way, there stands a square, comfortable, whitewashed building, peaked of roof, bright as to windows, and with a mighty sign before the door, whereon you shall behold the picture of a bull: a bull rolling of eye, astonishingly curly of horn and stiff as to tail, and with a prodigious girth of neck and shoulder; such a snorting, fiery-eyed, curly-horned bull as was never seen off an inn-sign.

He looked up at a quaint metal inn-sign, an ancient ship, which swung from a wrought-iron bracket overhead. 'When next I pass under that! he thought.

Away go the carriages, in the midst of a profoundly bowing landlord and waiters; of country-folks gathered round the blazing inn-sign; of shopmen gazing from their homely little doors; of boys and market-folks under the colonnade of the old town-hall; of loungers along the gabled street. "It is the famous Baroness Bernstein. That is she, the old lady in the capuchin.

'Let it be, nevertheless, I said; and I think he read a warning in my eyes. 'I have come to speak to you upon another matter. He did not refuse to listen, but threw one leg over the other, and looking up at the inn-sign began to whistle in a rude, offensive manner. Still, having an object in view, I controlled myself and continued.