THE WELSH BORDERLAND 



land of Radnor forest, and thence runs down towards 

 Presteign, a babbling alder-shaded brook in a narrow 

 vale, where below the hill of Pilleth Mortimer's levies 

 were roUed up in 1400 by the Welsh, and eleven hun- 

 dred Herefordians bit the dust. Hence came spurring 

 eastward to London and King Henry that ' Post from 

 Wales loaden with heavy news.' 



On leaving Presteign the little river has to fight its 

 way through fine uplifted woody hills, to thread the 

 bosky gorges of Aymestry, through which the Yorkist 

 army marched to Mortimer's Cross, and so out into 

 the pleasant pastures of Hereford. The old grey tower 

 of Kingsland church, which witnessed the fearful 

 slaughter of that sanguinary day, and no doubt the 

 heavenly portents which ushered in its fateful morn, 

 rises significant and conspicuous above the woods and 

 pastures of the now wide opening vale. The river 

 seems here to attune itself to its gentler surround- 

 ings, slipping down between crumbling red sandstone 

 banks from gravelly run to rippling pool, and thence into 

 interludes of quiet and deep water. Trees overhang 

 much of it on one bank or the other, occasionally on 

 both, and as wading is neither customary nor desirable, 

 the fishing has generally that flavour of difficulty about 

 it which is or should be accounted to its credit. I 

 doubt if there is a better bit of grayling water in the 

 kingdom than this, or one where they rise more freely 

 in the early autumn months. No worming is prac- 

 tised here as on the Border and in Yorkshire. There 

 is no occasion for it. For when the water is 

 clear in September and October, no matter what the 

 wind's quarter or what like the day, the grayling is 



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