the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
over the Esk just below the dam, and does its very best to spoil every
view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley. However,
from the road towards Sleights the huge building looks picturesque
enough, with the river flowing smoothly over the broad dam fringed by
the delicate faded greens and browns of the trees. The mill, with its
massive roof and projecting eaves, suggests in a most remarkable fashion
one of the huge gate-houses of the Chinese Imperial Palace at Peking.

The road follows close beside the winding river, and all the way to
Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.

A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
with the painfully ugly modern stone house, with its thin slate roof.