[Illustration: THE REINDEER INN, BANBURY. (Outside the Globe Room.)]
The Latin motto "Look and Go" reminded my brother of an old timber-built
mansion in Staffordshire which, as it stood near a road, everybody
stayed to admire, its architectural proportions being so beautiful. It
was said that when the fugitive King Charles was in hiding there he was
greatly alarmed at seeing a man on the road staring stedfastly at the
house, and as he remained thus for a considerable period, the king at
last exclaimed impatiently, "Go, knave, what lookest at!" Long after the
king had departed the owner of the house caused his words to be carved
in large characters along a great beam extending in front of the
mansion, which travellers in the present day still stay to admire,
though many take the words as being meant for themselves, and move on as
we did at Banbury, but perhaps more slowly and reluctantly.
We had the valley of the River Cherwell to our left, and at Deddington
we saw the site of the old castle from which Piers Gaveston, the unlucky
favourite of Edward II, was taken by the Earl of Warwick. He had
surrendered to "Joseph the Jew," the Earl of Pembroke, at Scarborough
on condition that the barons spared his life, but Warwick said he never
agreed to that, and as Gaveston had greatly offended him by nicknaming
him the "Black Hound" or the "Black Dog," he took him to Warwick Castle
and wreaked his venegance upon him by cutting off his head.
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