128 By Leafy Ways. 



ound their way to the pools among the marshes, and 

 strings of teal are reported from the river. 



It is an ancestral haunt. A thousand years have 

 left but little sign in this quiet corner of the world. 

 Among the stately elms, that cluster under the hill 

 which skirts the moor, rise the square tower and mas- 

 sive masonry of an ancient priory. Rich meadows and 

 wide belts of fertile corn-land stretch away across the 

 level plain. Over the yellow sands there comes the 

 murmur of the sea. 



' There twice a day the Severn fills : 

 The salt sea water passes by, 

 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

 And makes a silence in the hills.' 



About the spot there cling dim memories of the 

 past. Phoenician captains moored their galleys in this 

 little river. Kelt and Saxon struggled for the mastery 

 of those wooded heights. 



Long since scattered are the sandalled friars. For 

 three long centuries the dark rafters of the old ban- 

 queting-hall have rung with no sonorous chant, or 

 stave of reveller's song. The fish-ponds of the Priory 

 are choked with reeds. No stout-limbed churls clear 

 now the channels of the old decoy. 



But among the brown and rustling flags that fill the 

 ditches still descend long flights of wild-fowl. Troops 

 of widgeon that have left their summer home at the 

 setting in of the long Arctic night hide among the 

 tasselled sedges that wave along the banks. 



