Bronte was an active walker, stretching away over the moors for many
miles, noting in his mind all natural signs of wind and weather, and
keenly observing all the wild creatures that came and went in the
loneliest sweeps of the hills. He has seen eagles stooping low in search
of food for their young; no eagle is ever seen on those mountain slopes
now.
He fearlessly took whatever side in local or national politics appeared
to him right. In the days of the Luddites, he had been for the
peremptory interference of the law, at a time when no magistrate could be
found to act, and all the property of the West Riding was in terrible
danger. He became unpopular then among the millworkers, and he esteemed
his life unsafe if he took his long and lonely walks unarmed; so he began
the habit, which has continued to this day, of invariably carrying a
loaded pistol about with him. It lay on his dressing-table with his
watch; with his watch it was put on in the morning; with his watch it was
taken off at night.
Many years later, during his residence at Haworth, there was a strike;
the hands in the neighbourhood felt themselves aggrieved by the masters,
and refused to work: Mr. Bronte thought that they had been unjustly and
unfairly treated, and he assisted them by all the means in his power to
"keep the wolf from their doors," and avoid the incubus of debt.
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