Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/78

 end having been completed. Mother and Wife were to live together; the Sisters had got or were getting married,—Noble’s researches and confused jottings do not say specially when: the Son, as new head of the house, an inexperienced head, but a teachable, ever-learning one, was to take his Father’s place; and with a wise Mother and a good Wife, harmonising tolerably well we shall hope, was to manage as he best might. Here he continued, unnoticeable but easily imaginable by History, for almost ten years: farming lands; most probably attending quarter-sessions; doing the civic, industrial, and social duties, in the common way;—living as his Father before him had done. His first child was born here, in October 1621; a son, Robert, baptised at St. John’s Church on the 13th of the month, of whom nothing farther is known. A second child, also a son, Oliver, followed, whose baptismal date is 6th February 1623, of whom also we have almost no farther account,—except one that can be proved to be erroneous. The List of his other children shall be given by and by.

In October 1623, there was an illumination of tallow lights, a ringing of bells, and gratulation of human hearts in all Towns in England, and doubtless in Huntingdon too; on the safe return of Prince Charles from Spain without the Infanta. A matter of endless joy to all true Englishmen of that day, though no Englishman of this day feels any interest