So ends our chat with honest George, the waller. We will next interview a man who at one time, for more than eleven years, saw Wordsworth almost daily. This was in the days that Hartley Coleridge lived at the Nab Cottage, or, as our friend puts it (with a touch of menagerie suggestion in it), 'i' t' daays when _he kep' li'le Hartley_ at t' Nab,'--for our friend was Coleridge's landlord. I had considerable difficulty here, as in almost all my interviews with the good folk, of keeping to the object or subject in hand. For li'le Hartley's ghost was always coming to the front. 'Naäy, naäy, I cannot say a deal to that, but ye kna li'le Hartley would do so-and-so. Li'le Hartley was t' yan for them. If it had been Hartley, noo, I could ha' tell't ye a deal.' And so on. But in this particular instance my difficulty was trebled, for my friend evidently nursed the idea that Wordsworth had got most of 'his potry out of Hartley,' and had in return dealt very hardly with him, in the matter of admonishment and advice, while at the same time Mrs. Wordsworth, in her {24} capacity of common-sense accountant, with a strict dislike to wasteful expenditure or indiscriminate charity, had left something of bitter in his cup of Rydal Mount memories; and the old man would gladly enough pass over a Wordsworth leaflet for a folio page of li'le Hartley. But he too would be true in his speech, and would speak as he 'kna'ed,' neither more nor less. In his judgment Mr. Wordsworth was a 'plainish-faaced man, but a fine man, tall and lish (active), and allus aboot t' roads. He wasn't a man o' many words, wad walk by you times eneuf wi'out sayin' owt particler when he was studyin'. He was allus studyin' and you med see his lips gaen as he went aboot t' roads. He did most of his study upo' the roads. I suppose,' he added, 'he was a cliverish man, but he wasn't set much on by nin on us. He lent Hartley a deal o' his beuks, it's sartain, but Hartley helped him a deal, I understand, did t' best part o' his poems for him, sae t' sayin' is.' 'He wad often come i' t' efterneun and hev a talk at t' Nab, and would gang oot wi' Hartley takkin' him by t' arm for long eneuf. And when Hartley was laid by at t' last, Muster Wudsworth com doon ivery {25} day to see him, and took communion wi' him at t' last.' 'Then Mr. Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge were great friends?' I asked. 'Nay, nay, I doant think li'le Hartley ever set much by him, newer was verra friendly, I doubt. Ye see, he [Mr. Wordsworth] was sae hard upon him, sae verra hard upon him, gev him sae much hard preaching aboot his ways.' 'Well, but Mrs. Wordsworth was kind to Hartley?' I said.