Point Desolation is the name given to one of the headlands on the way, and “Rodney” the name of a cottage, now deserted, in a dark cleft, overhung with trees. Finally, the green drive conducts to a very welcome granite seat overlooking a wide expanse of sea, and thence through a gateway marked “private.” This is the entrance to the Glenthorne grounds, which are not so strictly private as the stranger might suppose. Through the gateway, the path continues, bordered here with laurels and fir-trees, and so dips down toward the mansion, built in 1830, in the domestic Gothic style, on a partly natural terrace, three parts of the way down the wooded cliffs and hillsides that go soaring up to a height of five hundred feet. The house is situated exactly on the borderline of Devon and Somerset, and is in the loneliest situation imaginable; having, indeed, been in the old days a favourite spot with the smugglers of these coasts. It was built, and the grounds enclosed, by the Reverend W. S. Halliday, a person whose eccentricities may yet be heard of at Lynmouth. One of his peculiar amusements was the sardonic fancy for burying genuine Roman coins in places where it is thought no Romans ever penetrated, with the expressed idea of puzzling future antiquaries. It seems--since he cannot be there to chuckle over the jest--a strange kind of humour. [Illustration: GLENTHORNE.] The long ascent from Glenthorne, through the woods, is extraordinarily tiring, beautiful though those woods be, and aromatic with piny odours. The carriage-drive, zigzagging up, is steep, and a halt by the way, every now and then, more grateful and comforting than even a famous cocoa is advertised to be. But that ascent in the shade is a mere nothing to the further treeless ascent to the coach-road, under the July sun. Bare grassy combes, and white roads that wind round the mighty shoulders of the hills exhaust the wayfarer, who at last, taking on trust the prehistoric camp of Old Barrow, perched on a steep height, gains the dull highway with a sigh of relief. I daresay a good many of the sardonic Mr. Halliday’s Roman coins are buried in Old Barrow, awaiting antiquarian discovery. The way back to Lynmouth, crossing Countisbury Common, has some beautiful glimpses away on the left, over the wooded valley of the East Lyn. CHAPTER V THE NORTH WALK--THE VALLEY OF ROCKS--LEE “ABBEY”--WOODA BAY--HEDDON’S MOUTH--TRENTISHOE--THE HANGMAN HILLS And so at last to leave Lynmouth.