such or with any object. To me there is a _sacredness_ of
interest in it consistent only with _silence_. It was the field of
endless nobleness and beautiful talent and virtue in Her who is now
gone; also of good industry, and many loving and blessed thoughts in
myself, while living there by her side. Poverty and mean Obstruction had
given origin to it, and continued to preside over it, but were
transformed by human valour of various sorts into a kind of victory and
royalty: something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could
be smaller and lower than very many of the details.'[7]

The Jeffreys were not slow in appearing at Craigenputtock. Their 'big
Carriage,' narrates the humorous host, 'climbed our rugged Hill-roads,
landed the Three Guests--young Charlotte ("Sharlie"), with Pa and
Ma--and the clever old Valet maid that waited on them; ... but I
remember nothing so well as the consummate art with which my Dear One
played the domestic field-marshal, and spread out our exiguous
resources, without fuss or bustle; to cover everything with a coat of
hospitality and even elegance and abundance. I have been in houses ten
times, nay, a hundred times, as rich, where things went not so well.
Though never bred to this, but brought up in opulent plenty by a mother
that could bear no partnership in housekeeping, she, finding it become
necessary, loyally applied herself to it, and soon surpassed in it all
the women I have ever seen.'[8] Of Mrs Carlyle's frankness her husband
gives this amusing glimpse: 'One day at dinner, I remember, Jeffrey
admired the fritters or bits of pancake he was eating, and she let him
know, not without some vestige of shock to him, that she had made them.
"What, you! twirl up the frying-pan, and catch them in the air?" Even
so, my high friend, and you may turn it over in your mind!' When the
Jeffreys were leaving, 'I remarked,' says Carlyle, that they 'carried
off our little temporary paradise; ... to which bit of pathos Jeffrey
answered by a friendly little sniff of quasi-mockery or laughter
through the nose, and rolled prosperously away.'

The Carlyles in course of time visited the Jeffreys at Craigcrook, the
last occasion being for about a fortnight. Carlyle says it was 'a
shining sort of affair, but did not in effect accomplish much for any of
us. Perhaps, for one thing, we stayed too long, Jeffrey was beginning to
be seriously incommoded in health, had bad sleep, cared not how late he
sat,