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 or the astonishing beauties of Mulgrave Woods.  Before I knew this part of Yorkshire, and had merely read of the woods as a sight to be visited from Whitby, I was prepared for something at least as hackneyed as Hayburn Wyke.  I was prepared for direction-boards and artificial helps to the charms of certain aspects of the streams.  I certainly never anticipated that I should one day sigh for a direction-board in this forest.

It was on my second visit to the woods that I determined to find a particularly dramatic portion of one of the streams.  My first ramble had been in summer.  I had been with one who knew the paths well, but now it was late autumn and I was alone.  I explored the paths for hours, and traversed long glades ablaze with red and gold.  I peered down through the yellow leaves to the rushing streams below, where I could see the great moss-grown boulders choking the narrow channels.  But this particular spot had gone.  I was almost in despair, when two labourers by great luck happened to come along one of the tracks.  With their help I found the place I was searching for, and the result of the time spent there is given in one of the illustrations to this chapter.  Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating woodland scenery than this.  From the broken walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on either hand—­for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of foliage—­are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to find the ordinary woodland commonplace.  The narrowest and deepest gorge is hundreds of feet deep in the shale.  East Row Beck drops into this canyon in the form of a waterfall at the upper end, and then almost disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed course.  The humid, hothouse atmosphere down here encourages the growth of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the newly-fallen rocks.

We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby’s modern castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south.  The long curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the entrance to Whitby Harbour.  The abbey stands out in its loneliness as of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending at Saltwick Nab.  Lythe Church, standing