[Illustration: _Photo: J. Thirlwall, Hereford._
THE WYE BRIDGE AND HEREFORD CATHEDRAL (_p. 134_).]
It is often found that the same hero ciphers through the history of a country or district with the persistence of a damaged note in an organ, although usually with a less irritating effect. In this quarter of the kingdom, which was once the buffer State between England and Wales, the name of Owen Glendower crops up continually, and at Hay among other places. At the head of his wild men from the hills, he came down like an avalanche upon the castle at Hay; when he retired, the pile was a mass of ruins, and now nothing stands of the ancient fort but a gateway--the very stones grey with age--and part of a tower. Legend, which has a pretty fancy and nimble brain, relates that the castle was built in one night by the celebrated Maud de Saint Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias Moll Walbee. "She built the Castle of Hay" (to quote Jones's "Brecknock") "in one night, the stones for which she carried in her apron. While she was thus employed, a small pebble, of about nine feet long and one foot thick, dropped into her shoe. This she did not at first regard; but in a short time finding it troublesome, she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes churchyard, in Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains to this day, precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial of the historical fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and unbelievers." Americans have long claimed for their Chicago belles the largest feet; but from this well-substantiated fact it is doubtful if any one of them ever wore so spacious a shoe as the fair Maud on the banks of the Wye. King John, in revenge for succour refused, visited the town with his vengeance; and altogether its early history is as stirring as any to be met with in these parts.
[Illustration: GOODRICH CASTLE (_p. 138_).]
By the time Hay is reached the Wye is fast becoming a stream of considerable size. Now entering Herefordshire, it flows through a broad vale, cultivated and mellow, where Clifford Castle stands a hoary ruin. Here, if history speak true, was born, in the reign of Henry II., one of great and general notoriety, whose name--or _nom de guerre_, as Dryden has it--is woven richly into the ballads of that and later days; for doubtless her beauty, like her failings, was great, and her death untimely and cruel:--