The old sign had become faded by long exposure to the weather, and was about to be renewed at the hands of a house-painter, when Cox, who happened then to be on one of his many visits to Bettws, ascended a short ladder reared against the house and repainted it, then and there. The coaching age still survived in North Wales at that period, and Bettws was still secluded and rustic, and he little looked for interruption; but, while busily at work, he was horrified by hearing a voice below exclaim, “Why, it _is_ Mr. Cox, I declare!” A lady, a former pupil of his, travelling through the country on her honeymoon, had noticed him, and although he rather elaborately explained the how and the why of his acting the part of sign-painter, it seems pretty clear that it was from this source the many old stories derived of Cox being obliged by poverty to resort to this humble branch of art. In 1849 he retouched the sign, and in 1861, two years after his death, it was, at the request of many admirers, removed from the outside wall and placed in a situation of honour, in the hall of what had by that time become an “hotel.” The painting, on wooden panel, is a fine, bold, dashing picture of a sturdy oak, in whose midst you do but vaguely see, or fancy you see, His Majesty, hiding. Beneath are troopers, questing about on horseback. It is very Old Masterish in feeling, low-toned and mellow in colour, and rich in impasto. It is fixed as part of a decorative overmantel, and underneath is a prominent inscription stating that it “forms part of the freehold of the hotel belonging to the Baroness Howard de Walden.” Sign and freehold have now descended to the Earl of Ancaster. Behind that inscription lies a curious story of disputed ownership in the painting. It seems that in 1880 the then landlady of the “Royal Oak” became bankrupt, and the trustees in bankruptcy claimed the sign as a valuable asset, a portion of the estate; making a statement to the effect that a connoisseur had offered £1,000 for it. This at once aroused the cupidity of the then Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, owner of the freehold, and an action was brought against the trustees, to determine whose property it was. The trustees in the first instance, in the Bangor District Court of Bankruptcy, were worsted by Judge Horatio Lloyd, who held that it was a fixture, and could not be sold by the innkeeper. This decision was challenged, and the question re-argued before Sir James Bacon, who, in delivering judgment for the trustees, said the artist had made a present of the picture, and that it belonged to the innkeeper as much as the coat or the dress on her back. He therefore reversed the decision of the Judge in Bankruptcy; but the case was carried eventually to the Supreme Court, and the Lords finally declared the painting to be the property of the freeholder.