Daily Yellowstone journal., 1891-04-05
VAKEMAN'S WANDERINGS
THE POET TRAVELLER VISITS THE
OLD HOME OF THE eRoNTES.

A Fascinating Description of an Obscure
MOOrIaDd vinage Made Famous Through
Woman's Genius-Precious Relics of the
Author of Jane Eyre"
copyright. 1891. by Edgar l. wakeman-l
HAwoRTH, England, March 20-In the
entire history of the relation of woman to
English literature there cannot be found
anything like the SAINT winsome, if some
what melancholy, interest that will always
cling TO the irreproachable name, the OBJ
scure surroundings and the extraordinary
personality of the author Of Jane Eyre"
II your impulse is to visit Haworth, come
IN the summer only. Then there is at least
sunshine. Then heecy clouds struggle over
and between the hills as If shadowy hosts
were m~arshaling behind the horizon. Here
and there splatches of color lie against old
wall and house fronts The heather
bmshes from the undulant green of The
moors And one can then easily imagine
bits Of Apulian pastoral scenery here in the
shepherds and their hocks, like cameo re
hefs on beds of dazzling emerald, with q
perspective Of hillowy lines and misty
clouds, and here and there a savage kite or
moor buzZard circling above the scene,
fierce and endless in its hunger for unwary
heath poults OF grouse.
But at any other time your impressions,
al the way from Keighley up the little val
ley of the Worth river. the stream being
nowhere more than q tiny beck" or moor
land rilL. will be disma. ones indeed This
entire Yorkshire distr CT, of which Brad
ford is the trade metropolis, is given over
70 the manufacture 4 worsteds. To the
right and left Of the little brand Of the
Midland railway, WI Oh follows the stream
up the valley past laworth to Oxenhope,
- Ii La-In-a-
mills. rotten weir grimy steam power
mills with their uge, half smoke-hidden
chimneys, decayir < arches, rows of factory
hand cottages W n slatternly women at
the door, gnarlel J, stunted trees springing
meagerly from impoverished soil in
shadowy gorge and glen, and in farthest
reaches Of prospect, beneath a leaden col
ored sky, the grim outlines of barren hills,
the hollows between showing farther, dim
mer outlines Of bleak, bare moors, suggest
ing the wastes Of a mountainous-waved
measureless sea.
The tiny Haworth railway station stands
in the center Of the horseshoe shaped val
ley head to which you have come from the
north. There could be a no more cherries
sight than that presenting itself in every
direction as you alight from your railway
carriage. The station master, the single
human being in sight, In a sparsely Gu,
threadbare uniform, trots around SILVER
inglyfor a moment as if feeble, starved and
cold, and then snaps himself up in his little
den with a sharp click, as If in flight from
the surrounding dreariness. Across the
track. where there has some time been a
little patch of flowers, a lonely, almost
fsatherless, altogether bedraggled hen
pecks at the dead stalks feebly. ~querulous-
". This is all of life there is near the sta
ton Over TO the left, a long distance away
on the level bed Of the valley. are several
huge mills. They are prisons IN every sense.
The black smoke rolls sullenly from their
stacks. But no human being is visible.
Then there are a half score rows Of work
mems houses, little, mean, hard and cramp-
ed. huddled in grimy, denuded spaces, or
set on the brae side in ali manner Of angles,
rs though they had set out TO run away
from the place. and, too feeble TO escape, had
stuck fast where they now stand. High
above this modern Haworth, Browmore
stretches away in interminable swells Of
savage, ~treeless hills. These circle around
70 the south and west, and your eye follows
them until it catches a steely gray line of
what at first seems ragged, Jagged cubes Of
rock. cutting in diagonal transverse from
the bottom TO nearly the top Of the bare
escarpment of another holder hillside, ter
minating in the ~loftier, drearier Haworth
mosr. This half defined, ragged line Of
gray is the ancient village Of Haworth.
Slipping and sliding along the ~sinuous,
clayey path, You reach the lower end Of
the long, climbing, winding village street.
Everything is Of stone-the houses, the
cutters, the rain troughs, the gargoyle
spouts, and the cobbled way, like an open
stone sewer cut along the hillside to carry
of the seepy oozings Of the moor NOSES
above. There is but the single street;
Main street, il is called. Dank, dark closes
sometimes extend for a house length TO the
right and left. The yard-wide pavements
are series of stone stairs and platforms.
Beneath the latter a~reShadowy shops and
living rooms. All stand open; but few in
habitants are 20 be seen. Those of whom
glimpses can be caught are little children,
still too young 20 be ground in the mills,
and bowed old crOnes of women already
ground by the mills into voicelessness and
shapelessness. Up, up, up for a mile, you
plod, and at last reach a tiny open space.
The houses are set around it closely.
Quaint shops and ancient inns crowd it at
all sorts Of curious angles. This is the head
of the village, geographically, IN habita-
tons and in aristOcracy. Not for its at
tractiveness, but because il seems an out
let to somewhere, you pass into a little
court behind the Black Bull an. It is a
maze Of angles and wynds. Suddenly an
other tiny open space cOnfronts you. Here
are an old, oblong, two stored stone house,
with q few yards Of grass plot at its side;
little stone church, attached TO, rather
thar blended with, a grim Norman tower;
q graveyard cluttered with crumbling
stones; the whole covering barely an acre
Of ground. These were Haworth parson-
age, church and churchyard, the earthly
n final home of the Brontes; and their
living eyes ever rested on Haworth moor,
which rises Immediately above the church
yard like a wall Of rounded stone.
Here, within the village nest of the moor
side eerie, one may fittingly pause and re-
call the history OF the Brontes as a family.
The father, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, was
son Of a county Down, ireland, farmer,