dashed out on to the beach, and commenced
to walk rapidly in the direction of Whitby, in the hope that the tide
had left some of those black stains still showing. I wanted, also, to
examine some of the queer ridges I had so often stepped over, and some
of the rivers I had leapt. The rivers were there wide enough in places,
but nothing in the way of a ridge or any signs of those inky patches
could I discern. Careful examination showed, however, that here and
there the smooth shore was covered with sand of a rather reddish hue,
quite unworthy of remark in daylight. The foolishness of my
apprehensions seems apparent, but nevertheless I urge everyone to choose
a moonlit night and a companion of some sort for traversing these three
miles after sunset.

The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent before
the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges across
the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these bridges,
which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up the
coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of the
picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was in
this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for the
pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which make up
East Row, that the Saxons chose a home for their god Thor. [Since this
was written one or two new houses have been allowed to mar the
simplicity of the valley.--G. H.] Here they built some rude form of
temple, afterwards, it seems, converted into a hermitage. This was how
the spot obtained the name Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620,
when the requirements of workmen from the newly-started alum-works at
Sandsend led to building operations by the side of the stream. The
cottages which arose became known afterwards as East Row.

A very little way inland is the village of Dunsley, which may have been
in existence in Roman times, for Ptolemy mentions Dunus Sinus as a bay
frequently used by the Romans as a landing-place. The foundations of
some ancient building can easily be traced in the rough grass at the
village cross-roads, now overlooked by a new stone house. But whatever
surprises Dunsley may have in store for those who choose to dig in the
likely places, the hamlet need not keep one long, for on either hand
there is a choice of breezy moorland