The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-03
VlEENiy'S WANDERiNGS.
The birthplace and Burial Place Of
Thomas Carlyle.

vo~lefechan, the Quaint Scottish Bor-
asr Village Which Gave This Century
One Of It's Mightiest Minds-A Testy
Little Hamlet, Unchanged by Time
and Progress-Carlyle's Boyhood
Home and All Material and Social
environments Precisely as He Left
Tbem-Glimpses of the Ignorance,
Cant. Rancor and Positive Savagery
That Fiercely Beset His Childhood
Days.
(Copyright)
Ecclefechan, Scotland, Sept. 14.-Some
English tramps were singing for their
braalrfasts before the doors of the grave
scottish villagers of Ecclefechan when l
tramped into the hamlet behind them.
There were five of them, great, hulking
fellows. and their hoarse and aggressive
believing was the only sound indicative
of human life in the village, even at that
late hour of the morning. They stood be-
side melodious burn which dashed from
under covered way and coursed on
through the village street.
Gent wall. On the other were strag-
Cling houses, and the one before which
the yagabonds lifted up their narrowing
voices was one of the plainest and quaint
est in Fcclefechan. From its appearance
It might have been an olden stable; an
abandoned lodge at the entrance to some
Rentleman's establishment formerly To-
Gated behind it; or the ancient Jail of the
village, now smartly whitewashed and
transformed into lowly habitation. 1t
was mite of thing with an archway
through it occupying one-third of the
lower story.
At each side was a narrow oaken door
and, nearer each end, tiny window. In
the second story another little window
above each lower one looked into the
street and over the center of the arch
way were two still more diminutiye win
dows, side by side. 1t was double house
of the dwarf variety, and the one at the
north end, where the strong-lunged
sorners sang, was the birthplace of
Thomas Carlyle.
The believing had brought much-capped
guid-wives to various windows and alley
entrances, at safe distances. l loitered
near enough to hear them discuss the
matin-sOng of the tramps as well as the
house and it's former occupants.
They medina fash (trouble) theirsels
tae sing there" croaked one old dame
with gentle swaying of her head, be-
tOkening a reminiscental vein of remark.
They're like mecht roar theirsels black
i the face, afore they eer wrang bluid
frde that neep (turnip)."
ayra ppOonaH eti1l nj or yyOYe1ap
"'its weel kent nae puir body liver saw.
syne or soon, the recht side o. the Car
Iyles' siller!"
How Carlyle's hosts of adorers would
have groaned to hear these his old neigh
bOrs go onl One limited at their pride
with, They thocht theirsels nae sheep
shanks!" Another, of their thrift with.
"They neer sell'd their hens on a rainy
day Another, of miserliness with, They
gaze their banes to nae dogs" Another,
of their austerity with, They warna guild
to neebor wiz" And another bent
old body summed up the feeling of many
of the testy villagers with the crisp epti-
ONE, They were i'll to thole!" That is,
it was hard to get along with the Car
lyles. And it is historic that others be-
sides these dim old souls, some who lived
in the same houses with them, found it
just that way.
tory, and after few vigorous kicks at
the door, departed; giving me OpporUu-
nifty to reach the house just as the huge
form and red, veinous face of Mrs. John
Gourley, caretaker, appeared at the door
Shaking a fine bludgeOn after the vanish
ing Migrants she relieved her Indignation
with: "HOots It's a weary day for auld
Scotland when there's nae body t. fend
a hoOse like this frae tina low English beg
Ears :" and then, in radiant expectancy OF
low English "SaXpences," babe me enter.
| doubt ii there ever lived a writer
about whom more has been written by
little and great writer's than has been
penned in criticism or praise of Thomas
Carlyle. And am just as much in doubt
whether any one or all of these, from
passing essayist to stately biographer.
ever really visited the birthplace of this
rare and royalty rampant genius. Yet
that should have been every serious
biographer's first duty. Interesting as
may be every little detail in the maturer
career of the man of genius, when we
have learned each one by heart, and have
been given standards by which to find his
place, measure his personality and weigh
MS influence, we are still unSatlSted.
What made this man what he was? What
were the potent forces which sent him on
his way or which were overcome, in his
upbuilding? Out of what manner of mold
did he come? What was the actual en-
vironment of the babe, the child, the
youth! We wish to be shown the ulti-
mate perpective II is not to be found in
any biography of Carlyle,
And so | think there is an unusual fas-
CmatiOn in coming to this hard little ham
let aud seeing with your own eyes pretty
nearly the same sort of folk and precisely
the same scenes as those the boy Carlyle
knew, hard as it is to believe from his
nlographers he ever was boy; and, in
sympathy and feeling, getting as far as
possible INTO the same framing and set
ing as those through which his eyes had
CAelr earliest outlook upon the close ma
SerlaI and spiritual horizon about him.
NO lruer mint of all this could be given
tIdl IN that morning incident of the grim
olu danes and their tongue-wagging about
"a! tue singing beggars and the house before
tuey sung 1t was in itself simply a bit
Cut OF Carlyle's family's time. | almost
IGIJ the Carlyle folk were "glowerin'
0hlht IN door, 1t is but two years less
man one hundred since Thomas Carlyle
WAS born in that little stone cottage.
mere IS no place in Britain where less
oudnSe mas come in that period than in
S'erh and tiny Ecclefechan.
indeed the changelessness of all these
aHllent border towns and hamlets is one
u Jhelr most impressive characteristics
I rom lethOlm to Dumfries along the
oItlSh border, and from Berwick to
S"IllsIe along the English border it it
JUST the same They are all as thew were.