It was by happy accident that I was enabled to have a chat with one of the best types of our half-farmer, half hotel-keeper, only a few days before he left the Rydal neighbourhood for good, after a sojourn of sixty-five years therein. We met at the house of a friend where he had been to pay his last rent due, and as I entered the room I was conscious of a be-whiskied conversationally aromatic air that boded well for a reet doon good crack. 'Kna Wudsworth! I sud kna him, if any man sud, for as a lad I carried t' butter to t' Mount, as a grawin' man I lived and worked in seet on him, and I lig noo upon t' verra bed-stocks as he and his missus ligged on when they were first wed, and went to Town End theereaway.' 'Now tell me,' said I, 'what was the poet like in face and make?' 'Well in mak he was listyish. I dar say I cud gee him four inches, now I suddent wonder but what I could, mysen.' My informant stood about six feet four, or four and a half. 'He was much to leuk at like his son William; he was a listy man was his son, mind ye. But for a' he was a sizeable man, was t' fadder, he was plainish featured, {38} and was a man as hed nea pleasure in his faace. Quite different Wudsworth was fra li'le Hartley. Hartley allus hed a bit of smile or a twinkle in his faace, but Wudsworth was not loveable i' t' faace by nea means, for o' he was sizeable man, mind ye.' 'But,' I interrupted, 'was he not much like your friend John Rigg in face?' 'He med be t' seame mak, ye kna, much aboot; but, John Rigg hes a bit pleasant in his faace at wust o' times, and Wudsworth, bless ye, never had noan.' 'Was he,' I said, 'a sociable man, Mr. Wordsworth, in the earliest times you can remember?' 'Wudsworth,' my kindly giant replied, 'for a' he hed nea pride nor nowt, was a man who was quite one to hissel, ye kna. He was not a man as fwoaks could crack wi', nor not a man as could crack wi' fwoaks. But thear was anudder thing as kep' fwoaks off, he hed a terr'ble girt deep voice, and ye med see his faace agaan for lang eneuf. I've knoan folks, village lads and lasses, coming ower by t' auld road aboon what runs fra Gersmer to Rydal, flayt a'most to death there by t' Wishing Gate to hear t' girt voice a groanin' and mutterin' and thunderin' {39} of a still evening. And he hed a way of standin' quite still by t' rock there in t' path under Rydal, and fwoaks could hear sounds like a wild beast coming fra t' rocks, and childer were scared fit to be dead a'most.' 'He was a great walker, I know,' I broke in. 'Which were his favourite roads? and was he generally on the hills, or did he keep pretty much to the valleys?'