At Newcastle we strike up the hills to the southwards, recrossing old Offa's Dyke and following the crest of the ridge. 'Weather's looking very brewin',' remarks a brother tramp; for storm-clouds, gathering in the west, hover grand and gloomily above the darkening ridges of Radnor Forest; so, putting the best foot foremost, we spin along the grass-grown bridle-path under the lee of the wind-tossed hedgerow. Out leaps the lightning, the thunder rolls, and the tempest swoops down in a whirl of seething rain-scuds; but what care we, for here in the nick of time is the Buffalo Inn at Clun, with a good meat-tea piping hot on the parlour table, and a cheery fire sparkling in the grate. So while the elements work their will abroad, and the rain drops patter at the casement, we sit within bien and cosy, canopied like gods in clouds of tobacco-smoke; 'fighting our battles o'er again,' and discussing plans of campaign for future excursions amidst 'fresh woods and pastures new.' * * * * * The morrow, then, sees us early astir, and taking the road ere the city man has opened his morning paper. And before the first mile is left behind, we find reason to congratulate ourselves on having made an early start, for the way is parlous steep, and the sun already rejoicing like a giant to run his course. So at a leisurely pace we breast the ascent--'chi va piano va sano,' as the Italians say--with big, rounded hills rising upon either hand, one of them having a strange sort of quarry-like chasm, called the Rock of Woolberry, scored deep in its wooded flank. This collar-work continuing for a matter of two miles or more, brings us to a moorland crest about a thousand feet above sea-level, whence the eye ranges over leagues of broken country, with the play of shine and shadow chequering its varied surface. At a place bearing the euphemistic title of New Invention, we quit the hard highroad and make a bee-line up the open hillside, until we find ourselves in the vast, prehistoric encampment, known as Gaer Ditches, or Caer Caradoc. The camp proves a fine example of an early British earthwork, being oval, or rather pear-shaped, in form, and protected upon its most vulnerable western flank by three concentric lines of entrenchment; while upon the east, where the natural declivity is more abrupt, there are but two, with traces of an entrance way in each of these faces. Tradition has been busy about this interesting spot. We are to believe that once, in days remote, Caractacus stood here at bay against his enemies. Nay, is not the stream at the foot of the hill still called Redlake river, because for three whole days its waters ran red with the blood of the combatants? And down yonder in the vale is Lurkinghope, where tradition tells the vanquished Britons 'lurked in hope' of retrieving their fortunes, while lying in ambush near the defile at Garn Gap.