In many of my visits to the homes and haunts of the poets, I have fallen in with persons and things which I regret that I could not legitimately introduce, and which yet are so full of life, that they deserve to be preserved. Exactly such a person did I meet with at Altrive Lake, at Mr. Scott's, the successor of Hogg. It was a jolly wool-buyer. He was a stout, fine, jovial-looking man, one of that class who seem to go through the world, seeing only the genial side of it, and drawing all the good out of it, as naturally as the sun draws out of the earth flowers and fruit. The hearty fellow was sitting at luncheon with Mr. Scott as I went in, and I was requested to join them. His large, well fed person, and large, handsome face, seemed actually to glow and radiate with the fullness of this world's joyousness and prosperity. His head of rich, bushy, black hair, and his smooth, black suit, both cut in town fashion, marked him as belonging to a more thronged and bustling region than these tawny, treeless, solitary hills. The moment I mentioned Hogg, and my object in visiting Altrive and Ettrick, the stranger's countenance lit up with a thorough, high-flowing tide of rosy animation. "Eh, but ye should ha' had me in Ettrick wi' ye! I know every inch of all these hills, and the country round. Haven't I bought the wool all over this country these twenty years? Hogg! why, sir, I've bought his wool many a time, and had many a merry 'clash' and glass of toddy wi' him at this verra table." Nothing would do, but I must accept half his gig thence to Galashiels that evening, a distance of twenty miles. It was a very friendly offer, for it saved me much time. Our drive was a charming one, and my stout friend knowing all the country, and apparently, every body in it, he pointed out every thing, and had a nod, a smile, a passing word, for every one that we met, or passed in their cottages by the road-side. He pointed out the piece of a wall, the only remains of Hogg's old house, at Mount Benger, adding,--"Ay, I bought his wool!" We descended the vale of Yarrow, passing through the beautiful woods of _Hangingshaw_. "Ye'll remember," said he, "what was said by some English noblemen in the rising in '45, when they heard that the lairds of _Hangingshaw_ and _Gallowshiels_ were among the Scotch conspirators. These are ominous names, said they, we'll have nothing to do with 'em; and withdrew, and thereby saved their own necks." So we went on, every few hundred yards bringing new histories of my jolly friend's wool-buying, and of matters which seemed nearly as important in his eyes. There was Newark tower, a beautiful object, standing on a lofty green mound on the other side of the Yarrow, the banks of which are most beautifully wooded. The tower, indeed, is included in the pleasure-grounds of Bowhill, a seat of the Duke of Buccleugh's, within sight; and you see neat walks running all along the river side for miles amid the hanging woods, and looking most tempting.