on the face of the cliff. Here it is always cool and pleasant in the
hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from
whooping-cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would
call in a loud voice, 'Hob-hole Hob! my bairn's getten t'kink cough.
Tak't off, tak't off.'

The same form of disaster which destroyed Kettleness village caused the
complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
destitution by the sums of money collected for their relief.

Scarcely two miles from Hinderwell is the fishing-hamlet of Staithes,
wedged into the side of a deep and exceedingly picturesque beck.

The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village,