that one would gladly call them by a
friendlier name.

But though the gloom of an autumn evening emphasizes the loneliness of
the inn, it blots out the beautiful views which extend in every
direction over dales and woodland, as well as the sea and moors. Whitby
shows itself beyond the windmill as a big town dominated by a great
rectangular building looking as much like a castle as an hotel, the
abbey being less conspicuous from here than from most points of view.
Northwards are the dense woods at Mulgrave, the coast as far as
Kettleness, and the wide, almost limitless moors in the direction of
Guisborough. The road to that ancient town goes straight up the hill
past Swart Houe Cross, which forms the horizon in the picture reproduced
as the frontispiece of this volume. Up on that high ground you can see
right across the valley of the Esk in both directions. The course of the
river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low Moor beneath us,
but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried up to the
heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when their
atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland heights
rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the slightest
sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to give in its
place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the whole world
seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being almost out of
sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the end of August
the heights are capped with purple, although the distant moors, however
brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally assume more
delicate shades, fading into grays and blues on the horizon.

But however much the moors may attract us, we started out with the
intention of seeing something of Eskdale. We will therefore take a
turning out of the Guisborough road, and go down the hill to Egton
village, where there is a church with some Norman pillars and arches
preserved from the rebuilding craze that despoiled Yorkshire of half its
ecclesiastical antiquities. Making our way along the riverside to
Grosmont, we come to the enormous heaps above the pits of the now
disused iron-mines. This was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks,
and Grosmont was at one time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first
cargo of ironstone was sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and
Whitby Railway was opened. However interesting Grosmont may sound