They were expressly given to understand that such was
their department; the buying in and management of the provisions rested
with Mr. Wilson and the cook. The teachers would, of course, be
unwilling to lay any complaints on the subject before him.
There was another trial of health common to all the girls. The path from
Cowan Bridge to Tunstall Church, where Mr. Wilson preached, and where
they all attended on the Sunday, is more than two miles in length, and
goes sweeping along the rise and fall of the unsheltered country, in a
way to make it a fresh and exhilarating walk in summer, but a bitter cold
one in winter, especially to children like the delicate little Brontes,
whose thin blood flowed languidly in consequence of their feeble
appetites rejecting the food prepared for them, and thus inducing a half-
starved condition. The church was not warmed, there being no means for
this purpose. It stands in the midst of fields, and the damp mist must
have gathered round the walls, and crept in at the windows. The girls
took their cold dinner with them, and ate it between the services, in a
chamber over the entrance, opening out of the former galleries. The
arrangements for this day were peculiarly trying to delicate children,
particularly to those who were spiritless and longing for home, as poor
Maria Bronte must have been; for her ill health was increasing, and the
old cough, the remains of the hooping-cough, lingered about her.
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