62 IN CARLYLE'S COUNTRY. 



approached, a girl sat by the road-side, near the gate, 

 combing her black locks and arranging her toilet; 

 waiting, as it proved, for her mother and brother, 

 who lingered in the village. A couple of boys were 

 cutting nettles against the hedge ; for the pigs, they 

 said, after the sting had been taken out of them by 

 boiling. Across the street from the cemetery the 

 cows of the villagers were grazing. 



I must have thought it would be as easy to distin- 

 guish Carlyle's grave from the others as it was to 

 distinguish the man while living, or his fame when 

 dead; for it never occurred to me to ask in what 

 part of the inclosure it was placed. Hence, when I 

 found myself inside the gate, which opens from the 

 Annan road through a high stone wall, I followed 

 the most worn path toward a new and imposing-look- 

 ing monument on the far side of the cemetery ; and 

 the edge of my fine emotion was a good deal dulled 

 against the marble when I found it bore a strange 

 name. I tried others, and still others, but was disap- 

 pointed. I found a long row of Carlyles, but he 

 whom I sought was not among them. My pilgrim 

 enthusiasm felt itself needlessly hindered and chilled. 

 How many rebuffs could one stand ? Carlyle dead, 

 then, was the same as Carlyle living; sure to take 

 you down a peg or two when you came to lay your 

 homage at his feet. 



Presently I saw " Thomas Carlyle " on a big mar- 

 ble slab that stood in a family inclosure. But this 

 turned out to be the name of a nephew of the great 



