“Maister Hobson having one of his Prentices new come out of his time, and being made a free man of London, desired to set up for himself; so, taking a house not far from St Laurence Lane, furnished it with store of ware, and set up the signe of the Maydenhead; hard by was a very rich man of the same trade, had the same signe, and reported in every place where he came, that the young man had set up the same signe that he had onely to get away his customers, and daily vexed the young man therewithall, who, being grieved in his mind, made it known to Maister Hobson, his late Maister, who, comming to the rich man, said, ‘I marvell, sir,’ (quoth Maister Hobson,) ‘why you wrong my man so much as to say he seketh to get away your customers.’ ‘Marry, so he doth,’ (quoth the other,) ‘for he has set up a signe called the Maidenhead, and mine is.’ ‘That is not so,’ (replied Maister Hobson,) ‘for his is the widdoe’s head, and no maydenhead, therefore you do him great wrong.’ The rich man hereupon, seeing himself requited with mocks, rested satisfied, and never after that envied Maister Hobson’s man, but let him live quietly.”[189] This sign occurs occasionally as the MAID’S HEAD, but since Queen Elizabeth’s reign it has doubtless frequently referred to the virgin queen. THE CROSS FOXES--_i.e._, two foxes counter saliant--is a common sign in some parts of England. It is the sign of the principal inn at Oswestry in Shropshire, and of very many public-houses in North Wales, and has been adopted from the armorial bearings of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Bart., whose family hold extensive possessions in these parts. The late baronet, too, made himself very popular as a patron of agricultural improvements. Old Guillim, the heraldic writer’s remarks upon this coat of arms, which he says belongs to the Kadrod Hard family of Wales, are quaint:-- “These are somewhat unlike Samson’s foxes that were tied together by the tails, and yet these two agree in _aliquo tertio_: They came into the field like to enemies, but they meant nothing less than fight, and therefore they pass by each other, like two crafty lawyers, which come to the Bar as if they meant to fall out deadly about their clients’ cause; but when they have done, and their clients’ purses are well spunged, they are better friends than ever they were, and laugh at those geese that will not believe them to be foxes, till they (too late) find themselves foxbitten.”[190]