But the most onerous and important duty of the prefect of hall consisted in superintending the excursion to “hills,”--_i.e._ to St. Catherine’s Hill, which took place twice on every holiday, once on every half-holiday during the year, and every evening during the summer months. On these occasions the “prefect of hall” had under his guidance and authority not only William of Wykeham’s seventy scholars, but the whole of the hundred and thirty pupils of the head master, who were called commoners. The scholars marched first, two and two (with the exception of the prefects who walked as they pleased), and then followed the commoners. And it was the duty of the prefect of hall to keep the column in good and compact order until the top of the hill was reached. Then all dispersed to amuse themselves as they pleased. But the prefect of hall still remained responsible for his flock keeping within bounds. St. Catherine’s Hill is a notably isolated down in the immediate neighbourhood of Winchester, and just above the charming little village of St. Cross. There is a clump of firs on the top, and the unusually well marked circumvallation of a Roman (or British?) camp around the circle of the hill. The ditch of this circumvallation formed our “bounds.” The straying beyond them, however, in the direction of the open downs away from the city, and from St. Cross, was deemed a very venial offence by either the prefect of hall or the masters. But not so in the direction of the town. It was the duty of the three “juniors” in college--one of whom I was during my first half-year--to “call _domum_.” When the time came for returning to college one of those three walked over the top of the hill from one side to the other, while the other two went round the circumvallation--each one half of it--calling perpetually “_Domum ... domum_” as loudly as they could. All the year round we went to “morning hills” before breakfast, and to afternoon hills about three. In the summer we went, as I have said, every evening after “hall,” but not to the top of the hill, only to the water-meads at the foot of it, the object being to bathe in the Itchen. Many of the Winchester recollections most indelibly fixed in my memory are connected with “hills.” It seems impossible that sixty years can have passed since I stood on the bank of the circumvallation facing towards Winchester, and gazed down on the white morning mist that entirely concealed the city and valley. How many mornings in the late autumn have I stood and watched the moving, but scarcely moving masses of billowy white cloud! And what strange similitudes and contrasts suggested themselves to my mind as I recently looked down from the heights of Monte Gennaro on the Roman Campagna similarly cloud hidden! The phenomenon exhibited itself on an infinitely larger scale in the latter case, but it did not suggest to me such thick-coming fancies and fantastic imaginings as the water-mead-born mists of the Itchen!