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Frederick Grice
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From Chapter 14, "Unpublished Diary Entries":

"Luncheon at Whitney Rectory and then we started for Merbach Hill Emily, Jenny, Armine and Helen got into the old Clyro Vicarage single seated brougham, while Walter and I sat on the box, and Willy Bevan rose upon the roof waving a tricolor flag, and blasting upon a brass horn. With the coachman we were 'eight precious souls and all agog to dash through thick and thin'. Edward rode the pony Balaam, put it up at Miss Domville' s at Winforton Court and was to have joined us at Andrew's farm where we alighted and walked across the meadows to the Clock Mill ferry on the Wye, but he unluckily missed us. It is a beautiful reach of the Wye at the Clock Mill Ferry. The broad river comes shimmering down round the bend from Castleton Hill, sparkling and glittering in the sunshine, with millions of dancing diamonds and glides on between the woods lower down the reach still and glassy as a lake.

"The ferryman came across from the Clock Mill with the ferry boat and took us all over at once. A little way up the Bredwardine road past the Castlefield Inn we turned aside to the right across some meadows to the foot of Merbach Hill and began the ascent The sun was burning hot and the hillside steep. Walter led the way and was at the top first in 15 minutes. There was a glorious view from the cairn on the summit, seven fair counties or more, Radnor, Brecon, Hereford, Monmouth, Worcester. Shropshire, Carmarthen, perhaps Cardigan and Gloucester, certainly the Malverns. The girls were delighted for they said they could see what they never saw before from this hill top, Hereford city with the church steeples, and the tower of the old cathedral _ but Armine faltered coming up the steep brash and Helen had a sad headache from the fierce glare of the sun. The girls made tea in a meadow with some hot water and tea things borrowed from a small farm house (we had brought up our own materials in a basket) while I went down the green lane to visit Arthur's Stone. After tea we returned to the top of the hill and Willy waved the tricolour flag and we all waved our handkerchiefs and shawls in hopes that they might be seen from the Rectory. Then we all came pelting down the hill, laughing and shouting, Walter first and Willy and I with Edward _ the long-lost Edward _ who had at last turned up and joined us at the cairn. We went in to the Castle Field Inn hoping to get some good sherry, but found only some decent beer. We found the carriage waiting for us at the field gate into the road by Andrew's farm and went back in the same order in which we had come. Willy Bevan sitting on the roof waving the tricolour flag, blasting away on the brass horn like a dying cow, the villagers all rushing to their doors to see the show pass, the boys solemnly and reverently saluting the flag."