When Raymond Berenger had dispatched his mission to the
Prince of Powys, he was not unsuspicious, though altogether fear-
less, of the result. He sent messengers to the several dependants
who held their fiefs by the tenure of carnage, and warned them to
be on the alert, that he might receive instant notice of the approach
of the enemy. These vassals, as is well known, occupied the
numerous towers, which, like so many falcon-nests, had been built
on the points most convenient to defend the frontiers, and were
bound to give signal of any incursion of the Welsh, by blowing
their horns ; which sounds, answered from tower to tower, and
from station to station, gave the alarm for general defence. But
although Raymond considered these precautions as necessary) from
the fickle and precarious temper of his neighbours, and for main-
taining his own credit as a soldier, he was far from believing the
danger to be imminent ; for the preparations of the Welsh, though
on a much more extensive scale than had lately been usual, were
as secret, as their resolution of war had been suddenly adopted.
It was upon the second morning after the memorable festival of
Castell-Coch, that the tempest broke on the Norman frontier. At
first a single, long, and keen bugle-blast, announced the approach
of the enemy ; presently the signals of alarm were echoed from
every castle and tower on the borders of Shropshire, where every
place of habitation was then a fortress. Beacons were lighted upon
crags and eminences, the bells were rung backward in the churches
and towns, while the general and earnest summons to arms an-
nounced an extremity of danger which even the inhabitants of that
unsettled country had not hitherto experienced.
