Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-10-05


chasing the raiders home, for building
important border towns.
Tho quaint hamlet stands in O. little
hollow OF the champaign land of south
eastern Annandale. The same old post
road which leads north from England
through Carlisle and grewsome Gretna
Green passes through II, forming its
principal and almost its only street.
From the south this highway leads
through pleasant country, well watered
and wooded and charmingly broken by
clumps of ancient trees or newer plan
tations and small, well-tilled fields. Be-
| You'd the hamlet the road winds up
ward for a mile or more TO as bleak,
suggestively dreary and hopeless hort
zon as you will often come upon in
| Normandy, or as are seen in the peas
ant pictures of Brittany by the master
hand of Millet. To the northeast there
are dim outlines of the Hartfell and
other mountain ranges. Away to the
southwest are the misty wales Of lovely
| Annandale and to the northwest, but
four miles distant, the legend-haunted
| hill of Brunswark, where the boy Car.
| lyle often wandered, lifts its Roman
camped head into the feecy, vagrant
| clouds.
Ecclcfechan has great age but little
history, aside from having produced
this one famous man. At about the
centre Of the village, where highway
leaves the old Carlisle and Glasgow
post-road to wander through the valley
Of Amman to the Solway.side town Of
that name, a little cross street, formed
by this road, runs few rods with il and
stops short by an ancient graveyard. In
this lies Carlyle, his father and mother
and other members of the family 1t
has also hundreds of unnamed graves;
for half q thousand years before the
Carlyle line had crossed the border into
Scotland from Carlisle with the adher-
ents of returning King David H., it was
the site Of then ancient church called
Ecclesie S. Fechani, or the Church of St.
Fechan. Fechan was an Irish abbot of
the seventh century from Iona, who was
canonized, his day being the Goth of
January. Hence the curious name of
Ecclefechan.
Border war brought the ancient
church to ruin. The spirit of the
coyenanters' time effaced what re-
manned. But the churchyard Of a
thousand years ago is Ecclefechan's
graveyard of to-day; and all the stern
descendants of those who swore to
"endeavOur the extirpation of popery,
prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism,
profaneness, &c." who have departed
life in little Ecclefechan, are lying here
in ''consecrated ground" In Carlyle's
boyhood time there were many of hand
loom weayers here. Their stone cottages
stood along the highway interspersed
with few shops and inns. The cot
tages remain, housing folk Of the same
social order, comfortable laborers among
the surrounding farms. AT least three OF
the inns are still standing. Two have
been transformed into humble habi.
tations. One, the Bush Hotel, little
long, low, rambling structure jutting
out into the highway inyitlngly, and
presided over by brisk, bonnie land.
lady, Mistress Kilgour, who Is not afraid
to tell you that she has no love fol
"Yonkee" pilgrims and their sneerine
ways--contains most of the life of the
sleepy hamlet; and, with ministering tC
cyclers on their northern tours, modern
coaching parties and occasional. pilgrims
to Carlyle's birthplace and grave, il
almost as breezy and bustling as in TIT
I
the olden post coaches changed theil
steaming horses, after the dash from
Gretna, before its hospitable door.
So this was the spot and these tn,
physical surroundings of Thomas
Carlyle from his birth in 1895, until his
stonemason father, James Carlyle, who
Hammered on at Ecclefechan, making
in his best year f100," removed to the
II.ol L nf Ma,nkin ann. 7 .o1.
erbie, about 10 miles north of his NATIVE
hamlet, and still alongside the old Car
Isle and Glasgow post-road. This com
| prised the first IA years Of his life. Dur
| ing this time all the boyhcod, boyhooC
home and home surroundings he eve
knew were his; for he had already fell
, the terrors Of schoolboy life at Amman
and just after the family removal t,
! Mainhill he was sent away to Edinburgh
, to the University, walking the Who'll,
distance, thrSygh Moaat, in compan.
: with senior student in the Universit.
q named Tom Small.
There are none living here or here
s about now who knew Thomas Carlyl
) as boy; but l found very many old
r old folk whose parents were his youth
Q full companions, or his parents "nee
/ bors," and who, on account Of Carlyle
. subsequent fame, left clear testinon,
v with their children, from their stand
!. point of view, of his home surrounding
e and boyhood life. II is all grim, gra,
4 picture set In forbidding shadows, witt
d but one bright, clear ray strealnin
4 through tia brave, loyal mothers end
\ less care and love; Of home so littl
( and mean that no room in it permitte
q the family meals to be eaten by all il
!. | members ut once; which forced youn
: Carlyle to carry forth his food of brea
crumbs boiled In milk to be eaten o
4 the coping of the WALL" while the la
g gazed at the distant mountains; of
IS father irasciDle as honest, unreasonable
as sturdy, miserly as pious in the dir
e old steely way; of mother, with all he
i great virtue, pestilence of fire an
n sword against all intellectual unfoldin
!. not in accord with her own almo
e savagely exacting creed; and of socii
h and Intellectual environment in whic
/ there were more melancholy, hopelei
d seriousness, petty caviling, downrigl
n hatred and far less brightness and sent
n ment than about the olden camptires {
i the American Chippewas or Sioux.
n 1t is plain that the Carlyles were M
=. only not beloved, but that they wei
II disliked with that brutal sort of rance
" common in ignorant neighborhcod
4 The father was the best workman
il the community. Had he not possesse
ii furious temper and hard fist, L
an would have been driven from the nan
u let. He was feared, rather than like
~ or respected. The mother was held
l. 10, !. g,la a. 81