These picturesque features of our rural country life have now disappeared almost as entirely as the parish stocks. Perhaps the most perfect specimen in existence, and one which could have hardly been rivalled for picturesqueness even in the old days, is that which still points the modern wayfarer to the "Fox and Hounds," in the village of Barley, near Royston, where the visitor may see Reynard making his way across the beam overhead, from one side of the street to the other, into the "cover" of a sort of kennel in the thatch roof, with hounds and huntsmen in full cry behind him! This old picturesque scene was painted some time ago by Mr. H. J. Thurnall, and the picture exhibited in one of the Scottish Exhibitions, and as the canvas may out-live the structure, the artist will have preserved what was an extremely interesting feature of rural life in the last century. The illustration on the preceding page gives a good idea of this characteristic old sign, and of those of the period under review, and also of the point of view from which Mr. Thurnall's picture is taken, viz., from the position of a person looking down the hill towards Royston. Upon this question of old signs it may not be out of place to add that when George III. was King local tradesmen in Royston had their signs, and especially the watchmakers, of which the following are specimens:--In 1767 we find an announcement of William Warren, watch and clock-maker at the "Dial and Crown," in the High Street, Royston, near the Red Lion; and again that:-- "William Valentine, clock and watch-maker at the 'Dial and Sun,' in Royston, begs leave to inform his friends that he has taken the business of the late Mr. Kefford" [where he had been previously employed]. These glimpses of our forefathers "getting on wheels," of the highways, their passengers, their dangers, and their welcome signs of halting places by the way, may perhaps be allowed to conclude with the following curious inscription to be seen upon an old sign on a chandler's shop in a village over the borders in Suffolk, in 1776:-- Har lifs won woo Cuers a Goose, Gud Bare. Bako. sole Hare. The modern rendering of which would be-- Here lives one who cures Agues, Good Beer, Tobacco sold here. {19} CHAPTER III. SOCIAL AND PUBLIC LIFE--WRESTLING AND COCK-FIGHTING--AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DEBATING CLUB.