Bronte and the Silk-Dress Episode--Mr. Bronte, the Supposed Prototype of Mr. Helstone--The Pistol-shots Theory--Mr. Bronte on Science Knowledge--Miss Branwell.

The character of the Rev. Patrick Bronte, who was responsible, after the death of his wife, for the education of his children, if we may believe the accounts given of it by those who have admired their genius, had many deplorable peculiarities. It would be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere the record of such pa.s.sionate outbreaks, such unreasoning prejudices, and such unbending will as are revealed in the stories which are told of him. But we shall see presently that most of these charges have no foundation in fact, while others are, probably, the result of total misconception.

Mrs. Gaskell gives an account of these peculiarities. On one occasion, she tells us, after the children had been out on the wet moors, the nurse had rummaged out certain coloured boots given to them by the Rev.

Mr. Morgan, who had been sponsor for Maria at Hartshead, and had arranged them before the fire. Mr. Bronte observing this, and thinking the bright colours might foster pride, heaped the boots upon the coals, and filled the house with a very strong odour of burnt leather. 'Long before this,' she says, 'some one had given Mrs. Bronte a silk gown ...

she kept it treasured up in her drawers. One day, however, while in the kitchen, she remembered that she had left the key in the drawer, and, hearing Mr. Bronte upstairs, she augured some ill to her dress, and, running up in haste, she found it cut into shreds.... He did not speak when he was annoyed or displeased, but worked off his volcanic wrath by firing pistols out of the back-door in rapid succession.... Now and then his anger took a different form, but still was speechless. Once he got the hearth-rug, and, stuffing it up the grate, deliberately set it on fire, and remained in the room in spite of the stench until it had smouldered and shrivelled away into uselessness. Another time he took some chairs, and sawed away at the backs till they were reduced to the condition of stools.'[4]

[4] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. iii, 1st edition.

Mr. Wemyss Reid, who implicitly adopts the 'pistol shots' and 'pretty dress' stories, while paying a high tribute to Mr. Bronte's rect.i.tude, and to his just pride in the celebrity of his daughters, says of him, 'He appears to have been a strange compound of good and evil. That he was not without some good is acknowledged by all who knew him. He had kindly feelings towards most people.... But throughout his whole life there was but one person with whom he had any real sympathy, and that person was himself.' He was 'pa.s.sionate, self-willed, vain, habitually cold and distant in his demeanour towards those of his own household.'

His wife 'lived in habitual dread of her lordly master.... It would be a mistake to suppose that violence was one of the weapons to which Mr.

Bronte habitually resorted ... his general policy was to secure his end by craft rather than by force.'[5]

[5] 'Charlotte Bronte, a Monograph,' pp. 20, 21, 22.

Miss Robinson, without hesitation, repeats the censures on Mr. Bronte published by Mrs. Gaskell and Mr. Reid, asking, 'Who dare say if that marriage was happy? Mrs. Gaskell, writing in the life and for the eyes of Mr. Bronte, speaks of his unwearied care, his devotion in the night-nursing. But, before that fatal illness was declared, she lets fall many a hint of the young wife's loneliness ... of her patient suffering, of his violent temper.'[6]

[6] 'Emily Bronte,' by A. Mary F. Robinson, 1883, p. 16.

It will thus be seen that the disposition of Mr. Bronte must have been a sad one indeed, if all these statements are true; and marvellous that, with 'such a father,' the young and sterling faculties of the 'six small children' should have been so admirably directed and trained that, of the four who lived to later years, three at least occupy an exalted and prominent position among women of letters in the present century. And it would be still more strange that these children were especially distinguished for the gentleness of their dispositions, and the refinement of their ideas. It may be hoped that the readers of this volume, with their additional knowledge of the affectionate, but often wayward, Branwell, will sympathize with the sentiment which Monsieur Heger expressed in his letter to Mr. Bronte, that, _en jugeant un pere de famille par ses enfants on ne risque pas de se tromper_. For we can scarcely doubt that the characteristics of the children, which I have named, were due, in fact, in great measure, to Mr. Bronte's affectionate supervision and education of them. He had graduated at St.

John's College, Cambridge, as we have seen; and the culture and tone of the university were brought under the roof of his house, where his children--more especially Branwell--were subjected to its influence.

Moreover, whatever may be thought of Mr. Bronte's intellectual gifts, or of the talent he displayed in his poems and prose writings, we may be sure that he possessed, in a marked degree, a deep sympathy with a higher mental training, and with the truth and simplicity of a pastoral life.

After the allegations against Mr. Bronte had appeared in the first edition of the life of his daughter Charlotte, he never ceased to deny the scandalous reflections upon his character in that work. 'They were,' he said to me, 'wholly untrue.' He stated that he had 'fulfilled every duty of a husband and a father with all the kindness, solicitude, and affection which could be required of him.' And Mrs. Bronte herself had said, as quoted by Mrs. Gaskell, 'Ought I not to be thankful that he never gave me an angry word?' thus openly declaring that, whatever might have been the peculiarities of Mr. Bronte's temper, his wife, at least, never suffered the consequences. The children also ever looked up to their father with reverence, grat.i.tude, and devotion.

In a conversation I had with Mr. Bronte on the 8th of July, 1857, he spoke of the unjustifiable reflections upon himself which had been made public, and he said, 'I did not know that I had an enemy in the world, much less one who would traduce me before my death, till Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte" appeared. Every thing in that book which relates to my conduct to my family is either false or distorted. I never did commit such acts as are there ascribed to me.' At a later interview Mr.

Bronte explained that by the word 'enemies,' he implied, 'false informants and hostile critics.' He believed that Mrs. Gaskell had listened to village scandal, and had sought information from some discarded servant.

Let us then examine the source of these allegations. Mrs. Gaskell tells us that her informant was 'a good old woman,' who had been Mrs. Bronte's nurse in her illness. Now it is known that, whatever good qualities this person may be supposed to have had, her conscientiousness and rect.i.tude, at least, were not of the first order, and she was detected in proceedings which caused Mr. Bronte to dismiss her at once. With the double effect of explaining her dismissal and injuring Mr. Bronte, this person gave an account of his temper and conduct, embellished with the stories which I have quoted from the first edition of the 'Life of Charlotte,' to a minister of the place; and it was in this way that Mrs. Gaskell became acquainted with her and them. Nancy Garrs, a faithful young woman who had been in Mr. Bronte's service at Thornton, who continued with the family after the removal to Haworth, and who still survives--a widow, Mrs. Wainwright--at an advanced age, a well-known inhabitant of Bradford, informs me that the 'silk dress' which Mr. Bronte is said to have torn to shreds was a print dress, not new, and that Mr. Bronte, disliking its enormous sleeves, one day, finding the opportunity, cut them off. The whole thing was a joke, which Mrs. Bronte at once guessed at, and, going upstairs, she brought the dress down, saying to Nancy, 'Look what he has done; that falls to your share.' Nancy declares the other stories to be wholly unfounded. She speaks of Mr. Bronte as a 'most affectionate husband; there never was a more affectionate father, never a kinder master;' and 'he was not of a violent temper at all; quite the reverse.'

This view of these slanderous stories is fortunately also confirmed out of the mouth of Charlotte Bronte. In the fourth chapter of 'Shirley,'

speaking of Mr. Helstone--whose character, though not absolutely founded on that of her father, is yet unquestionably influenced by her knowledge of his disposition, and of some incidents in which he had been concerned,--she says that on the death of his wife, 'his dry-eyed and sober mourning scandalized an old housekeeper, and likewise a female attendant who had waited upon Mrs. Helstone in her sickness ...

they gossiped together over the corpse, related anecdotes with embellishments of her lingering decline, and its real or supposed cause; in short, they worked each other up to some indignation against the austere little man, who sat examining papers in an adjoining room, unconscious of what opprobrium he was the object. Mrs. Helstone was hardly under the sod when rumours began to be rife in the neighbourhood that she had died of a broken heart; these magnified quickly into reports of hard usage, and, finally, details of harsh treatment on the part of her husband: reports grossly untrue, but not less eagerly received on that account.' It will thus be seen that the character of Mr. Helstone becomes in part a defence of Mr. Bronte. On the occasion above referred to, Mr. Bronte went on to say that, 'while duly acknowledging the obligations he felt himself under to Mrs. Gaskell for her admirable memoir of his daughter, he could not but regard her uncalled-for allusions to himself, and the failings of his son Branwell, as the excrescences of a work otherwise ably carried out.' He appeared, on this occasion, to be consoled by the thought that, owing to the remonstrances he had made, the objectionable pa.s.sages would be expunged from the subsequent editions of the work, and that he would ultimately be set right with the public. He concluded with these words:--'I have long been an abstraction to the world, and it is not consoling now to be thus dragged before the public; to be represented as an unkind husband, and charged with acts which I never committed.'

The story of the pistol-shots admits of ready explanation. It is known that Mr. Bronte, like Helstone, had a strange fascination in military affairs, and he seems to have had almost the spirit of Uncle Toby. He lived, too, in the troublous times of the Luddites, and had kept pistols, for defence as Mr. Helstone did. That gentleman, it will be remembered, had two pairs suspended over the mantel-piece of his study, in cloth cases, kept loaded. As I have reason to know, Mr. Bronte, having been accustomed to the use of fire-arms, retained the possession of them for safety in the night; but, fearing they might become dangerous, occasionally discharged them in the day-time.

Mr. Bronte's remonstrances and denials, and his refutation of the scandals attributed to him, had their effect; and the charges complained of were entirely omitted in the edition of the 'Life of Charlotte,' published in the year 1860. Mr. Bronte was in his eighty-fourth year when this tardy act of bare justice was done to him.

It may be added that the people of Haworth, when they saw in print Mrs.

Gaskell's exaggerated and erroneous statements, loudly expressed their disapprobation. Mr. Wood, late churchwarden of Haworth, also denied the stories of the cutting up of Mrs. Bronte's dress, and the other charges just referred to.

The truth about Mr. Bronte appears to be this: that though, like Mr.

Helstone--many of the _traits_ of whose character were derived from that of the inc.u.mbent of Haworth--he might have missed his vocation, like him he was 'not diabolical at all,' and that, like him, also, 'he was a conscientious, hard-headed, hard-handed, brave, stern, implacable, faithful little man: a man almost without sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid: but a man true to principle--honourable, sagacious, and sincere.' Possibly we should not be wholly mistaken in saying that, like the parson in 'Shirley,' Nature never intended him 'to make a very good husband, especially to a quiet wife.' He lacked the fine sympathy and delicate perception that would have enabled him to make his family entirely happy; and when brooding over his politics, his pamphlets, and his sermons, like Mr. Helstone, he probably locked 'his liveliness in his book-case and study-desk.'

Yet Mr. Helstone is neither brutal nor insane, 'neither tyrannical nor hypocritical,' but 'simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant than genial, rather scrupulously equitable than truly just--if you can understand such superfine distinctions?'

It would not have been necessary, in this work, to defend at such length the character of the Rev. Patrick Bronte, had it not happened, unfortunately, that recent works, which have treated admirably of the writings of his daughters, have also acquiesced in, and to a great extent reiterated, the serious charges made against him. Moreover, it can never be a useless thing to retrieve a character which has been thoughtlessly taken away. This defence has now been made, and it may be hoped that the 'six motherless children' had a more amiable and affectionate father than is generally supposed, and that he paid careful and anxious attention to their bringing-up and to their education. Indeed, of this there need be no doubt. The death of his wife had placed them in his hands, he being their only support on earth, and it surely is not too much to say that he knew his duty, and did it well, as the lives of his children prove, on the ground of natural affection, and, perhaps, of higher motives also.

The following extract from a letter written by Mr. Bronte a few years later, in reference to scientific knowledge, is sufficiently characteristic. He says: 'In this age of innovation and scepticism, it is the inc.u.mbent duty of every man of an enlarged and pious mind to promote, to the utmost extent of his abilities, every movement in the variegated, complex system of human affairs, which may have either a direct, indirect, or collateral tendency to purify and expand the naturally polluted and circ.u.mscribed mind of fallen nature, and to raise it to that elevation which the Scriptures require, as well as the best interests of humanity.'

Upon the death of his wife, Mr. Bronte felt the need of some one to superintend the affairs of his household, and a.s.sist him in this important charge of the bringing-up of his children; and so, towards the end of the year 1822, an elder sister of the deceased lady, Miss Elizabeth Branwell of Penzance, came to reside with him. She is represented to have been, in personal appearance, of low and slight proportions; prim and starched in her attire, which was, when prepared for the reception of visitors, invariably of silk; and she wore, according to the fashion of the time, a frontal of auburn curls, gracefully overshadowing her forehead. She took occasionally, through habit, a pinch from her gold snuff-box, which she had always at hand.

When she had taken up her residence at bleak, wild, and barren Haworth, she is said to have sighed for the flower-decked meads of sunny Penzance, her native place. Miss Branwell's affectionate regard for her dead sister's children caused her to take deep interest in everything relating to them, their health, the comfort and cleanliness of their home, and the sedulous culture of their minds. In the management of Mr. Bronte's household she was materially a.s.sisted by the faithful and trustworthy Tabby, who, in 1825, was added to the family as a domestic servant. By a long and faithful service of some thirty years in the Bronte family, Tabby gained the respect and confidence of the household. She had been born and nurtured in the chapelry of Haworth, at a time when mills and machinery were not, when railways had not made the inhabitants of the hills and valleys familiar with the cities and towns of England; and, moreover, before the ancient dialect, so interesting philologically to the readers of King Alfred's translations of Orosius and Bede, and the like, came to be considered rude, vulgar, and barbarous. Tabby used the dialect rightly, without any attempt to improve on the language of her childhood and of her fathers; and she was original and truthful in this, as in all her ways. It was from Tabby, princ.i.p.ally, that the youthful Brontes gained the familiarity with the Yorkshire Doric, which they afterwards reproduced with such accuracy in 'Shirley,' 'Wuthering Heights,' and others of their writings.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GIRLHOOD OF THE BRONTe SISTERS.

Girlhood--Gravity of Character--Charlotte's Description of the Elf-land of Childhood--The Still and Solemn Moors of Haworth influence their Writings--The Present of Toys--The Plays which they Acted--Mr.

Bronte on a Supposed Earthquake--The Evidence of his Care for his Children--Grammar School at Haworth--His Children under the Tuition of the Master--The Character of the School--Cowan Bridge School-- Charlotte's View of Mr. Carus Wilson's Management--Deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.

The childhood of the Brontes in the parsonage of Haworth has been pictured to us as a very strange one indeed. We have seen them deprived in their early youth of that maternal care which they required so much, and left in the hands of a father unfamiliar with such a charge, who was filled with Spartan ideas of discipline, and with theories of education above and beyond the capacity of childhood. There was probably little room in the house of Mr. Bronte for gaiety and amus.e.m.e.nt, very little tolerance for pretty dress, or home beauty, and small comprehension of childish needs. Rigid formality, silent chambers, staid attire, frugal fare, and secluded lives fell to the lot of these thoughtful and gifted children. It was no wonder that they grew up 'grave and silent beyond their years;' that, when infantine relaxation failed them, they betook themselves to reading newspapers, and debating the merits of Hannibal and Caesar, of Buonaparte and Wellington; or that, when they were deprived of the company of the village children by the '_Quis ego et quis tu?_' which was forced too early upon them, they fled for silent companionship with the moors.

Yet this childhood, stern and grim though it was, where we look in vain for the beautiful simplicity and sunny gladness which should ever distinguish the features of youth, had a beauty and a joy of its own; and it had a merit also. Charlotte Bronte herself has left us one of the most beautiful pictures which can be found in English literature of the pleasures of childhood, that elf-land which is pa.s.sed before the sh.o.r.es of Reality have arisen in front; when they stand afar off, so blue, soft, and gentle that we long to reach them; when we 'catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll of living waters,'

heedless of 'many a wilderness, and often of the flood of Death, or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as Death' that must be crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. So the Brontes, trooping abroad on the moors, revelling in the freedom of Nature, while their faculties expanded to the n.o.blest ends, lived also in the heroic world of childhood, 'its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes dream-scenes; darker woods and stranger hills; brighter skies, more dangerous waters; sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits; wider plains; drearier deserts; sunnier fields than are found in Nature.' Can we doubt that the Bronte children, endowed, as the world was afterwards to know, with keener perceptions, more exalted sympathies, and n.o.bler gifts than other children, enjoyed these things more than others could?

And the merit of their childhood was this: that it impressed them in the strongest form with the influence of locality, with the boundless expanse of the moors, and with the weird and rugged character of the people amongst whom they lived, and whom they afterwards drew so well.

Such influences as these are a quality more or less traceable in the works of every author, but they are very apparent in the productions of the Brontes. These writers could not have produced 'Jane Eyre,'

'Shirley,' and 'Wuthering Heights' without them, any more than Goldsmith could have written his 'Vicar of Wakefield' if his early years had not been pa.s.sed in the pleasant village of Lissey. The moors, clothed with purple heather and golden gorse in billowy waves, were certainly all in all to Emily Bronte; and she and her sisters, and the youthful Branwell with his ready admiration and brilliant fancy, escorted by Tabby, enjoyed to the full the free atmosphere of the heights around Haworth. The rushing sound of their own waterfall, and the shrill cries of the grouse, which flew up as they came along, were to them friendly voices of the opening life of Nature whose potent influence inspired them so well.

Of other companionship in their early years they had hardly any; and being unable to a.s.sociate much with children of their own age and condition, or to play with their young and immediate neighbours in childish games, Mr. Bronte's son and daughters grew up amongst their elders with heads older than their years, and spoke with a knowledge that might have sprung from actual experience of men and manners. They were, in fact, 'old-fashioned children.' Their extraordinary cleverness was soon observed, and the servants were always on their guard lest any of their remarks might be repeated by the children. Notwithstanding this, the little Brontes were children still, and took pleasure in the things of childhood. Up-grown men will not whip a top on the causeways, nor trundle a hoop through the streets, nor play at 'hide-and-seek' at dusk as of yore; but the Bronte children in their youthful days did all these things, and they entered at times with ardour, despite their precocious gravity, into the simple joys and amus.e.m.e.nts of childhood, as is testified by the eager delight with which they regarded the presents of the toys they received.

The earliest notice we have of Branwell Bronte is that Charlotte remembered having seen her mother playing with him during one golden sunset in the parlour of the parsonage at Haworth. Later, we are informed that Mr. Bronte brought from Leeds on one occasion a box of wooden soldiers for him. The children were in bed, but the 'next morning,' says Charlotte, in one of her juvenile ma.n.u.scripts, 'Branwell came to our door with a box of soldiers. Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I s.n.a.t.c.hed up one and exclaimed, "This is the Duke of Wellington!

This shall be the duke!" When I had said this, Emily likewise took up one and said it should be hers; when Anne came down she said one should be hers. Mine was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect in every part. Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him "Gravey." Anne's was a queer little thing much like herself, and we called him "Waiting-boy." Branwell chose his, and called him "Buonaparte."' So Charlotte relates these glad incidents of their childhood with pleasure, and places on record the joy they inspired.

Mr. Bronte says, 'When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte and her brother and sisters used to invent and act little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte's hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not infrequently arise amongst them regarding the comparative merits of Buonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar.'

In acting their early plays, they performed them with childish glee, and did not fail at times to 'tear a pa.s.sion to tatters.' They observed that Tabby did not approve of such extraordinary proceedings; but on one occasion, with increased energy of action and voice, they so wrought on her fears that she retreated to her nephew's house, and, as soon as she could regain her breath, she exclaimed, 'William! yah mun gooa up to Mr. Bronte's, for aw'm sure yon childer's all gooin mad, and aw darn't stop 'ith hause ony longer wi' 'em; an' aw'll stay here woll yah come back!' When the nephew reached the parsonage, 'the childer set up a great crack o' laughin',' at the wonderful joke they had perpetrated on faithful Tabby.

Mr. Bronte--like other parents and friends of precocious and gifted children, who, in after-life have become celebrated in religion, art, poetry, literature, politics, or war, and who have given out in childhood tokens of brilliant and sterling gifts which have been recorded in their biographies--saw in his own children evidences of that mental power, fervid imagination, and superior faculty of language and expression, which were developed in them in after-years. He often fancied that great powers lay in his children, and it cannot be doubted that he sometimes looked forward to and hoped for a brilliant future for his offspring. It was this hope that cheered him, and he gave to Mrs. Gaskell, for publication, all the evidences of genius in his son and daughters, as children, which he could remember. But, from the information he imparted to that writer, we can scarcely gather, I fear, sufficient to justify the inference he drew, or appears to have drawn, for the particulars given border too much on the trivial and unimportant. Perhaps Mr. Bronte failed to remember the special evidences he had observed of what he intended to convey at the actual moment of communication. Be this as it may, no doubt remained on his mind that genius was apparent in his children above and apart from their eager reading of magazines and newspapers, nor that other schemes and objects occupied their thoughts than the interests and contentions of the political parties of the hour.

'When my children were very young,' says Mr. Bronte,--'when, as far as I can remember, the oldest was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four,--thinking that they knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with less timidity, I deemed that, if they were put under a sort of cover, I might gain my end; and, happening to have a mask in the house, I told them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask. I began with the youngest (Anne, afterwards Acton Bell), and asked what a child like her most wanted; she answered, "Age and experience." I asked the next (Emily, afterwards Ellis Bell) what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered, "Reason with him, and, when he won't listen to reason, whip him." I asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between the intellects of man and woman; he answered, "By considering the difference between them as to their bodies."' In answer to a question as to which were the two best books, Charlotte said that 'the Bible,' and after it the 'Book of Nature,'

were the best. Mr. Bronte then asked the next daughter, 'What is the best mode of education for a woman;' she answered, 'That which would make her rule her house well.' He then asked the eldest, Maria, 'What is the best mode of spending time;' she answered, 'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.' He says he may not have given the exact words, but they were nearly so, and they had made a lasting impression on his memory.[7]

[7] Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. iii.

But the intellectual pabulum of Mr. Bronte's children, for some time, consisted, for the most part, as we are told, of magazines and newspapers. As these took the place of toy-books and fairy tales, their young minds were attracted by such moral subjects and entertaining stories as were treated of in the serials of the day; and their attention was also largely engaged in the political questions which were then debated in the Houses of Parliament. Imbibing from their father their religious and political views and opinions, they became strong partizans and supporters of the leading Conservatives in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. They had often heard conversations between their father and aunt on these subjects; they listened with interested attention, and obtained information as to the outer world and its pursuits. By their surroundings their minds were soon raised above the thoughts, desires, and interests of childhood in general; and, under the circ.u.mstances, though it may seem odd, it is not extraordinary that wooden soldiers should thus be made, by these talented children, to represent the two great opposing warriors of the present age.

In addition to the general bringing-up of his children at home, and the formal tasks which Mr. Bronte set them, magazines and other publications were thrown about, and Maria, being the eldest, was wont to read the newspapers when she was less than nine years old, and reported matters of home and foreign interest, as well as those relating to the public characters and current affairs of the day, to her young brother and sisters. Indeed, so earnest was her relevancy on such occasions in these unchildish and grave questions, that she could talk upon them with discriminating intelligence to her father, whose interest in his children thus grew, as their faculties expanded. The young Brontes, though still in childhood's years, were soon no longer children in intellect: they touched, in fact, the 'Sh.o.r.es of Reality'

at an earlier age than most children; and, though interested sometimes, perhaps momentarily, in trivial matters, they seem to have turned almost everything to literary account. Even Branwell's toys, which they all received so gleefully, gave rise to the 'Young Men's Play.'

Mr. Bronte, though interested deeply in the gradual development of the mental gifts of his children, did not fail, after his wife's death, to promote and protect their health, and he availed himself of the means which the chapelry of Haworth afforded. For this object he encouraged recreation on the moors at suitable times, and subjected the young members of his family to the pure and exhilarating breeze that, redolent of heather, breathed over them from the sea, during the summer and autumnal months.

On Tuesday, September the 2nd, 1824, a severe thunderstorm, and an almost unprecedented downfall of rain which resembled, in volume, a waterspout, caused the irruption of an immense bog, at Crow Hill, an elevation, between Keighley and Colne, and about one thousand feet above the sea-level. The mud, mingled with stones, many of large size, rolled down a precipitous and rugged clough that descended from it.

Reaching the hamlet of Pondens, the torrent expanded and overspread the corn-fields adjoining to the depth of several feet, with many other devastating consequences.

Mr. Bronte regarded this as the effect of an earthquake, and he sent a communication to the 'Leeds Mercury,' in which he says: 'At the time of the irruption, the clouds were copper-coloured, gloomy, and lowering, the atmosphere was strongly electrified, and unusually close.' In the same month--on Sunday, September 12th, 1824--he preached a sermon on the subject, in Haworth Church, in which he informed his hearers that, the day of disaster being exceedingly fine, he had sent his little children, who were indisposed, accompanied by the servants, to take an airing on the common, and, as they stayed rather longer than he expected, he went to an upper chamber to look out for their return. The heavens over the moors were blackening fast; he heard the muttering of distant thunder, and saw the frequent flashes of lightning. Though, ten minutes before, there was scarcely a breath of air stirring, the gale freshened rapidly and carried along with it clouds of dust and stubble.

'My little family,' he continued, 'had escaped to a place of shelter, but I did not know it.' These were Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. Their sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were then at Cowan Bridge.