"His Christian name was Richard," said I. "It was seventeen years ago that he disappeared--or died. And he must have been twenty-nine then, because Heppie says he was too young for Mrs. James--only a year older than she--which would make him forty-six now."
"You mustn't give her away like that," Sir Somerled reproached me. "I should have guessed her seven or eight years younger."
"Ah, that's the massage and the skin food and neck exercises," said I, wisely. "She _will_ be pleased when I tell her what a success you think they are."
"She'll be much more pleased if you don't tell her you've mentioned them, and I strongly advise you not to. Do you happen to know whether Doctor James had a scar on the left temple?"
"Yes," I eagerly answered. "She's told me about it. That's why he turned the right side of his face to be photographed. But why? Did you ever come to Carlisle and see him before you sailed for America as a boy?"
"I came to Carlisle. I may have seen him," Sir S. replied. "But say nothing to Mrs. James about this conversation of ours. Some time, perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off--for a sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost anxiously, as if something depended on my answer.
"Bore me? Oh, no: I shall love to go there," I assured him.
"Not much," I had to confess, "But there were three books of his my father had, which I've read. And there's a picture of him still in the library."
"'The French Revolution,' and 'Hero Worship,' and 'Sartor Resartus,' It was that last one I read first. I took it off the shelf because it had such a queer name. I wanted to find out what it meant. Don't you always desperately want to find out what everything means? I do. But I suppose you know everything by now. Well, I began to read without being so very much interested. Then, suddenly, my mind seemed to wake up. It was a wonderful feeling, just as if I stood near to a man who was playing marvellous and startling music on the grandest organ ever made. And the man who played could sing too. He sang in a voice sometimes harsh and sometimes sweet. It seemed to me as I read the book that it was humorous and sad, tender and stern at the same time. And till the very end I was carried along on the wave of that organ music, which had in it always a thrill of the divine. I never found any other book in the library that made me feel exactly like that, except Shakespeare--and Grandma had all the Shakespeare volumes carted off to the garret after she came in one day when I was eleven, and found me reading 'Macbeth.' As for the picture of Carlyle, it shows him, sitting in a chair, with a look on his face of a sad man alone in a gray world."