“Our home-folk always call it the 'Danes,' or the 'Denes,' which is no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word 'den' is,” says _John Ridd_. “It is a pretty place,” he adds, “though nothing to frighten any body, unless he hath lived in a gallipot.” The valley is well protected from the wind, and “there is shelter and dry fern-bedding and folk to be seen in the distance from a bank whereon the sun shines.” Here _John Ridd_ came to consult the wise woman toward the end of March, while the weather was still cold and piercing. In the warm days of summer she lived “in a pleasant cave facing the cool side of the hill, far inland, near Hawkridge, and close over Tarr-steps--a wonderful crossing of Barle River, made (as every body knows) by Satan for a wager.” But the antiquarians of to-day assert that the curious steps were made by the early British. Not far beyond the Valley of Rocks are the grounds of Ley Abbey, a modern mansion, but occupying the site of Lev Manor, to whose owner, _Baron de Whichehalse, John Ridd_ accompanies _Master Huckaback_ in search of a warrant against the _Doones_. In fact, all the way from Barnstaple over the parapet of whose bridge _Tom Faggus_ leaped his wonderful mare, every nook and corner of the countryside teems with legends of the _Doones_. From Lynton we drive over the border into Porlock, in Somerset that quaint little village where Coleridge wrote his “Kubla Khan,” and where Lord Lovelace brought Ada Byron to his seat of Ashley Combe. It was while riding home from Porlock market that _John Ridd's_ father was murdered by the _Doones_, and from Porlock we drove in a pony-trap over the high moors to Malmsmead, in search of the ruined huts of the _Doones_. [Illustration: xv.jpg Malmsmead] Over the heights of Yarner Moor, and past Oare Ford (now bridged over), the road lay past the old church of Oare, where _Lorna Doone_ and _John Ridd_ were married, and then into the deep flowery lanes that are the glory of Devon and Somerset. Malmsmead proved to be a little cluster of heavily thatched cottages, nestled under overhanging trees, where stood an ancient signboard with “Ba_d_gworthy” on one of its arms, pointing the way we should go. This _d_ on the old sign-board accounted for the local pronunciation of _Badgery_, as the river is always called. At Malmsmead the road ends, and thence one must proceed on foot. Several deep and flowery lanes lead one at length to the river where a lonely stone cottage stands on its further brink. This is Clowd Farm, and here all paths cease. Two hundred years ago, in the time of the _Doones_, the narrow valley through which the Bagworthy now dances in the open sunshine was filled with trees; but now, with the exception of a withered and stunted old orchard and grove near the farm, there is not a tree to be seen, and the Bagworthy, a lonely but cheerful trout stream, rattles along in the broad sunshine through a deep valley, whose sides slope steeply upward.