And make a chequer’d shadow on the ground:
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
And—whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tun’d horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once once—
Let us sit down....”
Another group of signs celebrates Master Reynard. We see him harassed by dogs and riders on the sign “Fox and Hounds” in Barley (Hertfordshire). We miss only the sportive ladies who dip their kerchiefs of lace in the poor devil’s blood to show that they, too, were in at the finish. This sign, by the way, was used long centuries ago, since we hear of a “Fox and Hounds Inn” in Putney that claims to be over three hundred years old.
The German Nimrod took no less pleasure than his English cousin in seeing a hunter’s sign on the tavern door, as is amply proved by the many golden harts, flying in great bounds, or our George sign from Degerloch, daintily wrought in iron. The German poets, too, sang many a song celebrating the adventures of the chase.
