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.
After walking about three miles into the heart of the wilderness, another deep glen, shut in by the same sloping heather-covered hills, suddenly opens to the right.

There are no cliffs, no overhanging trees, not even a bush, but all along the stream, "with its soft, dark babble," lie heaps and half-circles of stone nearly buried in the turf, and almost hidden by the tall ferns and foxgloves.

And this is what we went out for to see! These are the ruins of the _Doones'_ huts.