I was sent hither and thither, until
it occurred to me to ask for 'Jonathan o' th' Gate.' My difficulties
were then at an end. Such circumstances arise out of the settled
character and isolation of the natives.
"Those who have witnessed a Haworth wedding when the parties were above
the rank of labourers, will not easily forget the scene. A levy was made
on the horses of the neighbourhood, and a merry cavalcade of mounted men
and women, single or double, traversed the way to Bradford church. The
inn and church appeared to be in natural connection, and as the labours
of the Temperance Society had then to begin, the interests of sobriety
were not always consulted. On remounting their steeds they commenced
with a race, and not unfrequently an inebriate or unskilful horseman or
woman was put _hors de combat_. A race also was frequent at the end. of
these wedding expeditions, from the bridge to the toll-bar at Haworth.
The race-course you will know to be anything but level."
Into the midst of this lawless, yet not unkindly population, Mr. Bronte
brought his wife and six little children, in February, 1820. There are
those yet alive who remember seven heavily-laden carts lumbering slowly
up the long stone street, bearing the "new parson's" household goods to
his future abode.
One wonders how the bleak aspect of her new home--the low, oblong, stone
parsonage, high up, yet with a still higher back-ground of sweeping
moors--struck on the gentle, delicate wife, whose health even then was
failing.
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