Carline

“ Now great indeed was the joy in Brookside, and great joy and feast they made; and the Lady of the Castle sat at the high-table, clad in golden garments, at a glorious banquet which was held every night of the octave of the day when they had first heard these good tidings. But when the Carline saw the sadness of the Maiden because of it, she said to her: Nay, nay, my child, put on a good countenance and up with thine heart. For every tale is good till the next one is told ”

“ There then they rested; and from time to time the Carline would go her errands, and would see folk who would give her tidings of how things went in the world. And ever she found that the tale was the same. For the Lord of Longshaw might not stretch out a hand without thriving; and ever with him at council, or at privy talk, or in the front of the battle, was this marvellous champion, whom it availed nought for any man to gainsay. At last the time began to seem long for the Maiden ”

“ They were but three, and as they drew nigh it could be seen that they were hooded and cloaked despite the warm night; and one was tall and seemed a stalwarth man, and another was jimp and went daintily, as if it were a young woman, and the third, who forsooth had her face but little hidden, seemed a carline of some three-score years and ten.
None of the folk stirred save Stephen the Eater, who rose up as if to welcome the guests; and the tall man spake in a strange high voice that seemed to come from the back of his head: May we three wayfarers be here to-night? ”

“ The three merchant masters had ridden much apart from each other all day, and there was little feasting between them at even, and all men laid them down early to sleep. The Carline had spoken a word to the Maiden as they were a-riding, so that none might hear: "Sweetling," she said, "the thing thou hast to do tonight is to give heed to my least word or beckoning, and obey it, and then will all be well." So they two lay down somewhat away from the carle-folk. ”

“ And we both know that it is only amongst the Lord of Longshaw and his men that he is to be found. Quoth the Sub-prior: And when he is found, and ye let him know where ye are, will he come to you, think ye? Even so we believe, said the Maiden. Well, said the Sub-prior, tell me what ye would have, and it shall be done for you. Said the Carline: We would come across the water and have guide and guards through Wood Masterless to some place where we may dwell alone. Can ye do this much for us? ”

“ Then the Carline opened her budget, and told how they two had suffered from war and rapine, and when they had been delivered from a foul caitiff by a good Knight who had cherished them with all honour in his house, and all went well awhile, it endured not long, for needs must he go to the wars, and there was he slain: how they, to escape the malice of the mother of the said Knight, who was a proud and hard woman, and now that her son was dead neither loved nor feared aught, must needs flee away. ”

“ The false carline goes to the lady and opens her business; the lady will never wrong her lord. The carline (who is the wife’s foster-mother as well) now pretends concern about the lady’s health, which is in danger for want of sleep. She turns all the people out of the castle, lulls the dame to sleep, and introduces the squire. He wakes the lady, and tells her that she is in his power. The lady has presence of mind; it would, she says, be a sin to defile her husband’s bed, but she will come to the squire’s bed at night. ”

“ It is common enough in some districts of Scotland, though those who do not know it already need not be in the least ambitious of the honour of its acquaintance, unless indeed from a purely scientific point of view, for the carline, wherever it appears, is almost always the infallible sign of a poor soil, miserably farmed. The species receives its name of Carlina from an old story that Charlemagne introduced it into Europe on account of some valuable medicinal qualities attributed to it ”

“ Well, dat's what ails my young Miss an' dat's whut's de matter wid me an' Carline an' Mike. Ain't none ob us used to libin' in other folks' houses an' mixin' up wid other folkses families. 'Course hit's mighty fine to be rich an' put on airs, but hit's lonesome. 'Fore hit got so cold, me an' Carline'd go down home most ebery night an' set round de quarters, listenin' to de frogs an' de crickets, an' I'd say,' Carline, don't you mind de time dat Miss Lady fell head fust into de barrel ob sorghum? ”

“ Carlyle, suppressing all signs of incredulity.
“I don’t know; a friend of Afy’s, he said. Archibald, he swore to it in the most solemn manner; and I believe, as truly as that I am now repeating it to you, that he was speaking the truth. I want you to see Richard, if possible; he is coming to the same place to-night. If he can tell his own tale to you, perhaps you may find out a way by which his innocence may be made manifest. You are so clever, you can do anything.”
Mr. Carlyle smiled. “Not quite anything, Barbara. Was this the purport of Richard’s visit—to say this?” ”

“ You must stand in the shadow of that mountain of shams, to know how hard it is to cast light across it.
"Honour to Carlyle! Hoch! Although, in the wine with which we drink this health, I, for one, must mingle the despised 'rose-water.'
"And now, having to your eye shown the defects of my own mind, in the sketch of another, I will pass on more lowly,—more willing to be imperfect, since Fate permits such noble creatures, after all, to be only this or that. It is much if one is not only a crow or magpie;—Carlyle is only a lion. Some time we may, all in full, be intelligent and humanely fair." ”

“ Carlyle—what sorrow can there be in store for them?" asked Lady Isabel, her voice ringing with a strange sound, which Mrs. Hare noted, though she understood it not.
"Mrs. Carlyle's lot is bright," she said, a sweet smile illumining her features. "She loves her husband with an impassioned love; and he is worthy of it. A happy fate, indeed, is hers; but she must not expect to be exempted from sorrow. Mr. Carlyle has had his share of it," continued Mrs. Hare. ”

“ Mr. Carlyle stood confounded, and confused. He drew himself up to his full height, looking every whit as fearless and far more noble than the peer. “My lord, I do not understand you.”
“Yet I speak plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure to take advantage of a guardian’s absence and beguile a young girl into a marriage beneath her?”
“There has been nothing clandestine in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Vane; there shall be nothing but honor in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Carlyle. Your lordship has been misinformed.” ”

“ Carlyle.
“Then, sir, I beg your pardon a thousand times over. It occurred to me that you probably had not, Mr. Archibald; and I thought I would have said a word to prepare you, before you came upon it suddenly in the paper.”
“To prepare me!” echoed Mr. Carlyle, as old Dill was turning away. “Why, what has come to you, Dill? Are you afraid my nerves are growing delicate, or that I shall faint over the loss of a hundred pounds? At the very most, we shall not suffer above that extent.” ”

“ We came back to dinner at five or later, then Dr. Carlyle came in and spent the evening, which again was long by the clock, but had no other measure. Here in this house we breakfast about nine; Carlyle is very apt, his wife says, to sleep till ten or eleven, if he has no company. An immense talker he is, and altogether as extraordinary in his conversation as in his writing—I think even more so. You will never discover his real vigor and range, or how much more he might do than he has ever done, without seeing him. ”

“ Could you bring Mr Carlyle into contact with a live Puritan, the charm would be instantly dispelled. If one of Harrison's troopers would but ask him to step aside with him, under a hedge, to wrestle for a blessing, or would kindly undertake to catechise him on some point of divinity,—on that notion of his, for instance, of "Right and Wrong bodying themselves into Hell and Heaven,"—the alliance would be dissolved, not, perhaps, without violent rupture.
For ourselves, we sometimes think that Mr Carlyle is in earnest. Men should be honest. ”

“ Carlyle, I am indeed. The police are after me, set on by that wretch Thorn.”
Mr. Carlyle turned to the sideboard and poured out a wineglass of brandy. “Drink it, Richard, it will warm you.”
“I’d rather have it in some hot water, sir.”
“But how am I to get the hot water brought in? Drink this for now. Why, how you tremble.”
“Ah, a few hours outside in the cold snow is enough to make the strongest man tremble, sir; and it lies so deep in places that you have to come along at a snail’s pace. ”

“ Carlyle, for the love of life! I see you are alone. I’m dead beat, and I don’t know but I’m dodged also.”
The tones struck familiarly on Mr. Carlyle’s ear. He drew back mechanically, a thousand perplexing sensations overwhelming him, and the man followed him into the room—a white man, as Lucy called her father. Aye, for he had been hours and hours on foot in the snow; his hat, his clothes, his eyebrows, his large whiskers, all were white. “Lock the door, sir,” were his first words. Need you be told that it was Richard Hare? ”

“ Carlyle hesitated, and looked down at his dress—a plain, gentlemanly, morning attire, but certainly not a dinner costume for a peer’s table.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the earl; “we shall be quite alone, except my daughter. Mrs. Vane, of Castle Marling, is staying with us. She came up to present my child at the last drawing-room, but I think I heard something about her dining out to-day. If not, we will have it by ourselves here. Oblige me by touching the bell, Mr. Carlyle.” ”

“ Carlyle, a brooch with the portrait of her dog Nero, given by the mistress to "little Charlotte," a sock of Carlyle's with his initials neatly marked in red thread, and two small cardboard boxes, each containing locks of the hair of Thomas Carlyle and his wife. Trivial things, which yet in their haunting intimacy are too sacred, it seems, to be stared at by the curious sightseers.
In a corner hangs an etching that deserves a more prominent place, the desolate picture of a funereal cortège wending its slow way against a bleak background of snow and leaden sky.... ”

“ Carlyle's establishment would be a limited one."
"My lady perhaps I could put up with that; but I never could stop in the house with—" "that female Guy" had been on the tip of Marvel's tongue, but she remembered in time of whom she was speaking—"with Miss Carlyle. I fear, my lady, we have both got tempers that would slash, and might be flying at each other. I could not stop, my lady, for untold gold. ”

“ I put the question to Carlyle—as between man and man—do you listen, Isabel!—whether he had given you cause; and he answered me, as with God over us, he had never given you cause; he had been faithful to you in thought, word and deed; he had never, so far as he could call to mind, even looked upon another woman with covetous feelings, since the hour that he made you his wife; his whole thoughts had been of you, and of you alone. It is more than many a husband can say," significantly coughed Lord Mount Severn. ”

“ We Germans have all heard of Carlyle, and many of us have read him with due amazement, our admiration often interrupted by groans at the difficulties his style places in the candid foreigner's path; but without Carlyle which of us would ever have heard of Sterling? And even in this comparatively placid book mines of the accustomed vehemence are sprung on the shrinking reader. To the prosaic German, nourished on a literature free from thunderings and any marked acuteness of enthusiasm, Carlyle is an altogether astonishing phenomenon. ”

“ A gentle-spirited, high-born lady, as I know she was, could not fail to be driven to desperation; and I know that she has been."
Mr. Carlyle turned to his sister. "Can this be true?" he inquired, in a tone of deep agitation.
She did not answer. Whether it was the shade cast by the nightcap, or the reflection of the wax taper, her face looked of a green cast, and, for the first time probably in Miss Carlyle's life, her words failed her. ”

“ Carlyle’s physician and that he would tell me later exactly what Mrs. Carlyle had confessed to him. Here is Quain’s account as he gave it me that night in a private room at the Garrick. He said:
“I had been a friend of the Carlyles for years: he was a hero to me, one of the wisest and best of men: she was singularly witty and worldly-wise and pleased me even more than the sage. One evening I found her in great pain on the sofa: when I asked her where the pain was, she indicated her lower belly and I guessed at once that it must be some trouble connected with the change of life. ”

“ Carlyle was true and faithful to you, and to you alone. Few women have the chance of happiness, in their married life, in the degree that you had. He is an upright and good man; one of nature's gentlemen; one that England may be proud of as having grown upon her soil. ”

“ Vane dines out, my lord,” was the man’s immediate reply. “The carriage is at the door now.”
“Very well. Mr. Carlyle remains.”
At seven o’clock the dinner was announced, and the earl wheeled into the adjoining room. As he and Mr. Carlyle entered it at one door, some one else came in by the opposite one. Who—what—was it? Mr. Carlyle looked, not quite sure whether it was a human being—he almost thought it more like an angel.
A light, graceful, girlish form; a face of surpassing beauty, beauty that is rarely seen, save from the imagination of a painter ”