“Thy future life!  Thy fate is it, indeed!  Whilst thou makest that thy chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy God is worthless.  What is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul’s peril, pretend to believe.  Elsewhither for a refuge!  Away!  Go to perdition if thou wilt, but not with a lie in thy mouth—­by the Eternal Maker, No!!”

I was startled at first, but stood still listening; then I thought I saw a faint blue cloud of mist curling up in the fireplace.  Watching this smoke and sitting before it in gloomy abstraction was the form of an old man.  I swept my hand through the apparition, but still it stayed.  My lips moved in spite of myself and I said: 

“Hail! hard-headed man of granite outcrop and heather, of fen and crag, of moor and mountain, and of bleak East wind, hail!  Eighty-six years didst thou live.  One hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer, enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast!  And yet methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest summons the grim messenger of death.  But thou didst live and work and love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no pollution.  But mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity:  on thy battered shield there was no crest and thou didst leave all to follow truth.  And verily she did lead thee a merry chase!

“Thou hadst no Past, but thou hast a Future.  Thou didst say:  ’Bury me in Westminster, never! where the mob surges, cursed with idle curiosity to see the graves of kings and nobodies?  No!  Take me back to rugged Scotland and lay my tired form to rest by the side of an honest man—­my father.’

“Thou didst refuse the Knighthood offered thee by royalty, saying, ’I am not the founder of the house of Carlyle and I have no sons to be pauperized by a title,’ True, thou didst leave no sons after the flesh to mourn thy loss, nor fair daughters to bedeck thy grave with garlands, but thou didst reproduce thyself in thought, and on the minds of men thou didst leave thy impress.  And thy ten thousand sons will keep thy memory green so long as men shall work, and toil, and strive, and hope.”

The wind still howled.  I looked out and saw watery clouds scudding athwart the face of the murky sky.  The shutters banged, and shut me in the dark.  I made haste to find the door, reached the stairway—­slid down the banisters to where Mrs. Brown was waiting for me at the threshold.

We locked the door.  She went across to her little bakeshop and I stopped a passing policeman to ask the way to Westminster.  He told me.

“Did you visit Carlyle’s ’ouse?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“With old Mrs. Brown?”

“Yes, she waited for me in the doorway—­she had the rheumatism so she could not climb the stairs.”