When the coaches pulled up here, it was soon discovered, by judicious questioning, who were the strangers who had not been made “free.” They were made to alight, and, having removed their hats and kissed a pair of horns mounted on a pole, “the oath” was administered by the landlord in this wise:—“Upstanding and uncovered: silence. Take notice what I now say to you, for _that_ is the first word of the oath; mind _that_. You must acknowledge me to be your adopted father. I must acknowledge you to be my adopted son. If you do not call me father you forfeit a bottle of wine; if I do not call you son I forfeit the same. And now, my good son, if you are travelling through this village of Highgate, and you have no money in your pocket, go call for a bottle of wine at any house you may think proper to enter and book it to your father’s score,” and so forth. An initiate had to swear never to drink small beer when he could get strong (unless he preferred small); never to eat brown bread when he could get white (unless he preferred brown); never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress (unless he preferred the maid, and in case of doubt he might kiss both); after which he had to kiss the horns or the woman in the company who appeared the fairest, as seemed good to him, the ceremony concluding with the declaration of his privileges as a freeman of Highgate. Among the well-known privileges were—that if he felt tired when passing through Highgate and saw a pig lying in a ditch, he might kick the pig away and take its place, but if he saw three lying together he must only kick away the middle one and lie between the other two! X IT was on Highgate Hill that the great Francis, Lord Bacon, whom some believe to have written Shakespeare’s dramas, fell a martyr to his scientific enthusiasm. Driving up this chilly eminence one winter’s day when the snow lay on the ground, it occurred to him that, from its chemical constituents, snow must possess admirable preservative properties, and he accordingly resolved immediately to put this theory to the proof. Stopping his carriage at a neighbouring farmhouse, he purchased a fowl and stuffed it carefully with snow. Being in weak health at the time, he took a chill, and before he could be driven home, became so alarmingly ill that he was obliged to be carried to Lord Arundel’s house at Highgate. There a damp bed aggravated his seizure, so that in a few days he died, in 1626.