In cold weather, however, it is
important, as you will, if you have the wind behind you when going, get
very hot, and you will be apt to get chilled when leisurely returning,
or be prevented, from fear of it, of sitting down and resting. Not that
such an idea of catching cold ever entered into the imagination of the
two schoolboys. Along the ridges of the smooth downs they went merrily,
gazing down into the valley below, and more than once looking round to
discover if the hounds were following. Nowhere were they to be seen.

The foot of Fairway Tower was reached at last. It was the keep of a
castle of very ancient date, built in the centre of a Roman encampment.
The walls were of enormous thickness, allowing a staircase to wind up
within them.

"Let us give them a good view of the sea," cried Ernest. Up the
well-worn stone steps they mounted. Up--up they sprung, laughing
merrily and cheering loudly when they reached the top. Few people,
after a run of nearly fifteen miles, would have liked to have followed
their example. The view, Ernest declared, repaid them. It was
expansive, and it gave, from its character, a pleasing, exhilarating
sensation to the heart as it lay at their feet basking in sunshine. On
either hand were the smiling undulating downs, dotted here and there
with flocks of sheep. Before them the country sloped away for a couple
of miles till it reached the bright blue dancing ocean, over which
several white sails were skimming rapidly. Inland there was a
beautifully diversified country. There were several rich woods
surrounding gentlemen's seats, and here and there a hamlet and a church
spire rising up among the trees, and some extensive homesteads, the gems
of an English rural landscape; and there were wide pasture lands, and
ploughed fields already getting a green tinge from the rising corn, and
many orchards blushing with pink bloom, and white little cottages, and
the winding river, and many a silvery stream which ran murmuring into
it; but I need not go on with the description. Ernest and Buttar drank
in its beauties as they did the cool breeze which blew on their cheeks,
and then they looked round to try and discover the hounds.

"I see them," exclaimed Buttar, after a long scrutinising search.
"There they are, just coming out of Beechwood; they look no bigger than
a troop of ants. Well, we have got a fine start of them--let us give
them a cheer. They won't hear us, but they may pos