Then a great rage came over me, and I remember very distinctly that there flashed through my mind in a second the reflection, “Now, if I have to call you a d---d old fool for saying that, I will; but I’ll be even with you.” When as quickly the following inspiration came, which I uttered, and I suspect somewhat energetically:—
“Mr. Carlyle, I think that my brother, Henry Leland, who got the wound from which he died standing by my side in the war of the rebellion, fighting against slavery, was worth ten of my old Puritan ancestors; at least, he died in a ten times better cause. And” (here my old “Indian” was up and I let it out) “allow me to say, Mr. Carlyle, that I think that in all matters of historical criticism you are principally influenced by the merely melodramatic and theatrical.”
Here Mr. Carlyle, looking utterly amazed and startled, though not at all angry, said, for the first time, in broad Scotch—
“Whot’s thot ye say?”
“I say, Mr. Carlyle,” I exclaimed with rising wrath, “that I consider that in all historical judgments you are influenced only by the melodramatic and theatrical.”
A grim smile as of admiration came over the stern old face. Whether he really felt the justice of the hit I know not, but he was evidently pleased at the manner in which it was delivered, and it was with a deeply reflective and not displeased air that he replied, still in Scotch—
“Na, na, I’m nae thot.”
It was the terrier who had ferociously attacked the lion, and the lion was charmed. From that instant he was courteous, companionable, and affable, and talked as if we had been long acquainted, and as if he liked me. It occurred to me that the resemblance of Carlyle to my father during the row was appalling, the difference being that my father never
gave in. It would have been an awful sight to see and a sound to hear if the two could have “discussed” some subject on which they were equally informed—say the American tariff or slavery.
After a while Mr. Froude the historian came in, and we all went out together for a walk in the Park. Pausing on the bridge, Mr. Carlyle called my attention to the very rural English character of a part of the scenery in the distance, where a church-spire rises over ranges of tree-tops. I observed that the smoke of a gypsy fire and a tent by a hedge was all that was needed. Then we began to talk about gypsies, and I told Mr. Carlyle that I could talk Romany, and ran on with some reminiscences, whereat, as I now recall, though I did not note it then, his amusement at or interest in me seemed to be much increased, as if I had unexpectedly turned out to be something a little out of the ordinary line of tourist interviewers; and truly in those days Romany ryes were not so common as they now are. Then Mr. Carlyle himself told a story, how his father—if I remember rightly—had once lent a large sum to or trusted a gypsy in some extraordinary manner. It befell in after days that the lender was himself in sore straits, when the gypsy took him by night to a hut, and digging up or lifting the hard-stane or hearth-stone, took out a bag of guineas, which he transferred to his benefactor.