IN CARLYLE'S COUNTRY. 61 



The Carlyles were living on this farm while their 

 son was teaching school at Annan, and later at Kir- 

 caldy with Irving, and they supplied him with cheese, 

 butter, ham, oatmeal, etc., from their scanty stores. 

 A new farm-house has been built since then, though 

 the old one is still standing; doubtless the same 

 Carlyle's father refers to in a letter to his son, in 

 1817, as being under way. The parish minister was 

 expected at Mainhill. " Your mother was very anx- 

 ious to have the house done before he came, or else 

 she said she would run over the hill and hide her- 

 self." 



From Mainhill the highway descends slowly to the 

 village of Ecclefechan, the site of which is marked to 

 the eye, a mile or more away, by the spire of the 

 church rising up against a background of Scotch firs, 

 which clothe a hill beyond. I soon enter the main 

 street of the village, which in Carlyle's youth had an 

 open burn or creek flowing through the centre of it. 

 This has been covered over by some enterprising 

 citizen, and instead of a loitering little burn, crossed 

 by numerous bridges, the eye is now greeted by a 

 broad expanse of small cobble-stone. The cottages 

 are for the most part very humble, and rise from the 

 outer edges of the pavement, as if the latter had been 

 turned up and shaped to make their walls. The 

 church is a handsome brown stone structure, of re- 

 cent date, and is more in keeping with the fine fertile 

 country about than with the little village in its front. 

 In the cemetery back of it, Carlyle lies buried. As I 



