, which is
no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word 'den' is.
However, let that pass, for I know very little about it; but the place
itself is a pretty one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he
hath lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough-sided hollow, bending
at the middle, touched with stone at either crest, and dotted here and
there with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right hand is an upward
crag, called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and giving great
view of the Channel. Facing this, from the inland side and the elbow of
the valley, a queer old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another,
and quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times larger.
This is called the Devil's Cheese-ring, or the Devil's Cheese-knife,
which mean the same thing, as our fathers were used to eat their cheese
from a scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which has fallen
away since I knew it) was like to such an implement, if Satan eat cheese
untoasted.

But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest in; to sit and
think that troubles were not, if we would not make them. To know the sea
outside the hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of waves to
pity sailors labouring. Then to watch the sheltered sun, coming warmly
round the turn, like a guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,
casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and awakening life
from dew, and hope from every spreading bud. And then to fall asleep and
dream that the fern was all asparagus.

Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for creature comforts,
or to let pure palate have things that would improve it. Anything went
down with me, as it does with most of us. Too late we know the good from
bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being memory's medicine rather
than the wine of hope.

Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of rocks, sheltering
from the wind and rain within the Devil's Cheese-ring, which added
greatly to her fame because all else, for miles around, were afraid to
go near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under eaves of lichened
rock she had a winding passage, which none that ever I knew of durst
enter but herself. And to this place I went to seek her, in spite of all
misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the sheep were folded.

Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached a beautiful
sermon about the Witch of En