The old hill-spirit lingers in them, which coined the
rhyme, inscribed on the under part of one of the seats in the Sedilia of
Whalley Abbey, not many miles from Haworth,
"Who mells wi' what another does
Had best go home and shoe his goose."
I asked an inhabitant of a district close to Haworth what sort of a
clergyman they had at the church which he attended.
"A rare good one," said he: "he minds his own business, and ne'er
troubles himself with ours."
Mr. Bronte was faithful in visiting the sick and all those who sent for
him, and diligent in attendance at the schools; and so was his daughter
Charlotte too; but, cherishing and valuing privacy themselves, they were
perhaps over-delicate in not intruding upon the privacy of others.
From their first going to Haworth, their walks were directed rather out
towards the heathery moors, sloping upwards behind the parsonage, than
towards the long descending village street. A good old woman, who came
to nurse Mrs. Bronte in the illness--an internal cancer--which grew and
gathered upon her, not many months after her arrival at Haworth, tells me
that at that time the six little creatures used to walk out, hand in
hand, towards the glorious wild moors, which in after days they loved so
passionately; the elder ones taking thoughtful care for the toddling wee
things.
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