A STOLEN FOUNTAIN! 



105 



with the exception of a pretty peep towards Windsor 

 Castle on the left hand, within two miles of Slough, 

 and near where Gary of the Itinerary places a 

 spot he calls " Tetsworth Water," which does not 

 appear to exist nowadays. 



Slough is quite modern and unremarkable, but it 

 is rapidly building up legends of its own. There 

 have, for instance, been many strange thefts on the 

 roads, from time to time, but 

 none perhaps stranger than 

 the purloining, two years ago, 

 of the drinking - fountain 

 which used to stand at the 

 entrance to Slough, where the 

 road branches off to Uxbridge. 

 Until some unusually acquisi- 

 tive folk came along and 

 carried it away with them, 

 there was at that corner a 

 fountain of bronze and marble, 

 fourteen feet in height, the 

 bronze upper part weighing 

 nearly half a ton. It acted 

 also as a finger-post, directing 



strayed cyclists in the way they should go. The good 

 folks of Slough went to bed one night and saw their 

 fountain standinof where it had been used to stand for 

 years past ; but in the morning, when they arose and 

 went forth about their business, the fountain was 

 gone ! Nothing but the plinth was left. Some mad 

 wag suggested that one of the many cyclists who 

 frequent the Bath Road had taken it home with him 



^■;8«iV"t^ 



THE STOLEN FOUNTAIN. 



