Morning journal and courier., 1893-09-30

in that morning incident of the grim old
danes and their tongue-wagging about the
| singing beggars and the house before
which they sung. 1t was In itself simply
bit out of Csrlyle's family time. I al
most felt the Carlyle folk were "glowerin'
ahint th' door" 1t is but two years less
than one hundred since Thomas Carlyle
was born in that little stone cottage.
There is no place In Britain where less
change hes come in that period than In
stern and tiny Ecclefechsn.
Indeed the chaugelessnsss of all these
ancient border towns and hamlets Is one
OF their most impressive characteristics.
From Yetholm to Dumfries along the Scot
tish border, and from Berwick to Carlisle
along the English border, 1t is just the
same. They are all as they were; only q
little more asleep. The railway stations
are about all the structures In them that
have large windows or smell of paint.
they remain chiefly as they stood when
the border raids were ended. They are
gray, battle-scsrred, ancient. They were
built in fighting times and have their re-
corda in their hard old faces. To wander
among them IL like being whisked back
two or three centuries and set down face
to face with the grimness and cruelties of
feudal times; and 1 sometimes think that
the nature of the lowly folk, beaten to
savage hardness in those sorry times, is in
this borderland of both kingdoms long
time taking on the gentler touch of out
time. Scotland is richest In these weirr
old border relics of q sorry age. The
Scotch crowded close to the border; build
more and stronger places of sally, even
the tinisst of hsmlets having likeness In
sturdiness and strength to the larger
towns, and then, being the livellest on
their legs, "hsrried" the English In such
brisk and occupying way that they had lit
tie time on their hands, after chasing the
raiders home, for building important bor-
der towns.
The quaint hamlet stands in little hol-
low of the champaign land of southeast
ern Annandale. The same old post-road
which leads north from England through
Carlisle and grewsome Gretna Green passes
through it, forming its principal and al
| most it's only street. From the south this
highway leads through a pleasant country,
well watered and wooded, and charmipgly
| broken by clumps of ancient trees or new
| er plantations and snail, we'll titled fields.
Beyond the hamlet the road winds upward
| for mile or more to as bleak, suggestive
| ly dreary and hopeless horizon as you will
| often come upon in Normsudy, or as are
| seen in the peasant pictures of Brittany
| by the master hand of Hillet. To the
| northeast there are dim outlines of the
| Hartfell and other mountain ranges.
Away to the southwest are the misty
wales of lovely Annsndsle and to the
| north Invest, but four miles distant, the
| Legend hill of Brunswark, where
the boy Carlyle often wandered, lifts its
Roman c2mped head into the heecy, va
| grant clouds.
Ecclefechsn has great age but little his
/ tory, aside from having produced this one
tsmou5 man. At about the center of the
| village, where a highway leaves the old
Carlisle and Glasgow post-road to wander
through the valley of Amman to the Sol
way side town of that name, a little CROSS
street, formed by this road, runs a few
rods with 1t and stops short by an ancient
| grave yard. In this lies Carlyle, his faith
er and mother and other members of the
family. 1t has also hundreds of unnsmed
/ graves; for half Thousand years before
the Carlyle line had CROSSED the border into
i Scotland from Carlisle with the adherents
of returning King David II it was the
| site of then ancient church called Eccle-
sic S. Fechani, or the Church of st. Fe-
4 chan. Fechan was an Irish abbot of the
| seventh century from lone, who was can
onized, his day being the Goth of January.
Hence the curious name of Eccleftchan.
Border war brought the ancient church
to ruin. The spirit of the covensnters
1 Iliub GHHC6u "ubL mhluSu DuG TUX
| churchyard of a thousand years ago is Ec
clefechan's graveyard of to day; and al
ths stern descendsnts of those who sEore
| to ''endeavour the extlrpstion of popery,
| prelssy, superstition, heresy, schism, pro
| fAneness, etc. J." who have departed life In
little Ecclefechau, are lying here in Icon
sscrsted ground" Ia Csrlyle's boyhood
time there we're many of hand loom wsAv-
era here. Their stone cottages stood
/ talo In l. lob, Int mi q
few shops and inns. The cottages re-
main, houslOg folk of the same social or
der, comfortable laborers among the sur
| rounding farms. At least three Of the
inns are still standing. Two have been
transformed into humble habitations
One, the Bush Hotel-a little, long, low,
rambling structure jutting out into the
highway invitingly, and presided over by
brisk, bonnie lsudlady, Mistress Kilgour
who is not afraid to tell you that she hsI
no love for "Yonkee" pilgrims and thsil
| snesring wRys-contains most of the life
of the sleepy hamlet; and, with minister
ing to cyclers on their northern touTs
modern coaching parties and occasions
| pilgrims to Csrlyie's birthplace End grave
is almost ss breezy and bustling as in tbs
times of the packers and csrters. wher
the oldsn post coaches changed theil
steaming horses, after the dash from Gret
| ma, before its hoSpitable door.
50 this was the spot and these the phYs
ical surroundings of Thomas Carlyle from
his birth in 1875, until his stone -masoI
father, James Carlyle, who Hammered OF
at Ecclefechan, making in his beat yea
one hundred pounds" removed to tht
, bleak farmstead of Mainhill, near Locker
bic, about ten miles north of his nstivu
hamlet, and still alongside the old Csrlisl
and Glasgow post road. This comprised
the first fourteen yesrs of his life. Dur
ing this time all the boyhood, boyhoo(
home and home surroundings he eve
knew were his; for he had already felt tn
lust after the family removal to Msinhil
hs was sent away to Edinburgh to the uni
yersity, walking the whole distance
through Aoffst. in company with o-nio
student in the university psmed Ton
Small.
> There are none living here or heresbou
now who knew Thomas Carlyle as a boy
| but found very many old, old folk who's
parents were his youthful companions, o
3 his parents ''nee6ors," and who, on &C
count of Csrlyle's subsequent fame, lef
| clear testimony with their children, from
? their standp point of view. of hls home SUI
, roundings and boy hood life. 1t is sll
{ grim, gray picture set In forbidding shad
D dovs, with bu. one bright, clear rs
? streaming through it-a brave, loySl moth
) er's endless care and love; of g home 8
8 little and mean that no room In 1t permit
8 ted the family meals to be eaten by all II
] members at once; which forced young Csl
q lyle to carry forth his food of brea
9 crumbs boiled in milk to bs eaten on tn
:. s'cspiug of the wall" while the lad gszs
: at the distant mountains; of father irai
t chile as honest, unreasonable as sturdy
y miesrly as pious in the dim old steelT way
q of a mother, with all her great virtue,
: psstileno. of fire and sword sgAicst all Ii
:. tellectusl unfolding not In accord with hs
i own almost savsgely exsotlng creed; an
n of social and intellectual environment
d which there were more melancholy, hop
a less seriousness, pstsy caviling, downrigt
p hatred and far less brightness and sent
f ment than about the clden csmpfres
:. the American Chippewas or Sioux.
II It is plain that the Csrlyles were NJ
" only not beloved. but that they were di
n liked with that brutal sort of rancor COZ
IS mon in ignorant neighborhoods. II
IT father was the best workman of the cor
n munity. Had he not possessed . furiov
II temper and hard fst he would have be,
,e driven from the hamlet. He was fears
1t rather than liked or respected. Tho mot
a. er was held by her guid neighbors
"a bs o'ersaintly and "o'er-aapeTana,"