“Mademoiselle Louizon
Demeurant cher Alizon
Justement au cinquième étage
Près du cabaret de la Cage.”
Not only bird-cages and their musical or scholarly inhabitants, but any remarkable object that happened to stand before the tavern was readily interpreted by the people as a sign. In the little English town of Grantham, where we had already the opportunity of admiring the noble “Angel Inn,” we saw in a tree before a modest tavern a beehive with this inscription on a board beneath it:—
“Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore,
And say when thou hast viewed it o’er and o’er,
Grantham now two rarities are thine,
A lofty steeple and a living sign.”
To tell the truth, the lofty tower of St. Wulfram seemed to us the only remarkable “rarity” of the two, the more so as the church was beautifully decorated for Thanksgiving Day with flowers and the fruits of the field, not to mention its unique little library with the chained old books.