tops. Then, on the lower slope of all,
came hedgerows of elms, with bright, green rolls of verdant turf
between; the spires of churches; the roofs and white walls of many sorts
of man's dwelling-places, and gleams of a bright river, with two or
three arches of a bridge. Beyond that again appeared a rich wide
valley--I might almost have called it a plain, all in gay confusion,
with fields, and houses, and villages, and trees, and streams, and
towns, mixed altogether in exquisite disorder, and tinted with all the
variety of colors and shades that belong to autumn and to sunset.

Down the descent, the eye of Sir Philip Hastings could trace several
roads and paths, every step of which he knew, like daily habits. There
was one, a bridle-way from a town about sixteen miles distant, which,
climbing the hills almost at its outset, swept along the whole range,
about midway between the summit and the valley. Another, by which he had
come, and along which he intended to proceed, traversed the crest of the
hills ere it reached the cottage, and then descended with a wavy line
into the valley, crossing the bridle-path I have mentioned. A wider
path--indeed it might be called a road, though it was not a
turnpike--came over the hills from the left, and with all those easy
graceful turns which Englishmen so much love in their highways, and
Frenchmen so greatly abhor, descended likewise into the valley, to the
small market-town, glimpses of which might be caught over the tops of
the trees. As the baronet sat there on horseback, and looked around,
more than one living object met his eye. To say nothing of some sheep
wandering along the uninclosed part of the hill, now stopping to nibble
the short grass, now trotting forward for a sweeter bite,--not to notice
the oxen in the pastures below, there was a large cart slowly winding
its way along an open part of the road, about half a mile distant, and
upon the bridle-path which I have mentioned, the figure of a single
horseman was seen, riding quietly and easily along, with a sauntering
sort of air, which gave the beholder at once the notion that he was what
Sterne would have called a "picturesque traveller," and was enjoying the
prospect as he went.

On the road that came over the hill from the left, was another rider of
very different demeanor, going along at a rattling pace, and apparently
somewhat careless of his horse's knees.

The glance which Sir Philip Hastings gave to either of them