The Eildon Hills, the tokens of his power, and Melrose, where his bones were laid “on St. Michael’s night,” are only a few miles off. The picturesque ruin of Smailholme Tower, where the later minstrel spent the happiest days of his childhood, was within reach; Abbotsford, the Fairy Dean, and the Rhymer’s Glen, Dryburgh, and the vale of Tweed, haunted at every winding with some old tale or song, all wooed us by turns. So each day had its excursion, its legend of some sort to investigate, its ruin to explore. It was with William Nelson on the Tweed as on the Nile: he was indefatigable in the pursuit of information concerning every minutest object of interest, and never was satisfied till he had seen for himself, and questioned and sifted all available evidence. The memories of many a pleasant day, with the incidents of kindly intercourse and genial humour that added fresh sunshine to the scene, would furnish material enough to add many a chapter over which old friends would not readily tire. But such reminiscences can only be glanced at here. I select, therefore, from among those home holidays the latest of all: a summer at Glenfeochan. Glenfeochan is a romantic glen of the West Highlands, through which the Feochan finds its way to the sea. Oban is only six miles off, and so steamers and boats and all the attractions of the sea are at hand, such as ever had a fascination for William Nelson. For he guessed, as has been seen, that could the pedigree of the Nelsons of Throsk be followed up, they might prove to be of the stock of old Danish rovers, the sons of Thor, whose home was on the sea; and so he welcomed the hint at an etymology of the Bannockburn farm from the Thor of the Vikings. Unquestionably he possessed not a little of their steady hardihood and love of adventure, softened though it was by transmission through a sober race of Covenanters, who tilled the carse where Bruce had triumphed, and, when needs were, could emulate him in sturdy resistance to the tyrant.