The record-union., 1891-04-05
WAKEMAN'S WANDERINGS.
Bleak Hills of the West Riding of
Yorkshire.
Descriptive of the Old Home of the
Brontes, the Ancient Town and
Church of Haworth, and of the
Wild and Deso1ate Surrounding of
Yorkshire Moors.
Especial Correspondence of the SUNDAY
UNION. CODYright. 1911

In the entire history of the relation of
woman to English literature there cannot
be foundanything like the same winsome,
Ii somewhat melancholy, interest that viii
always cling to the irreproachable name,
the obscure surroundings and the extra
ordinary personality of the author of
"Jane Eyre"
Because of this Haworth, though inter-
esting for little else than once having
been the home of the Bronte family, is
worth going long way to see. And it is
long and dreary way one has to come.
Perched up here among the bleak hills of
the West Riding of Yorkshire alongside
the moors and fells of Lancashire, the
place is almost as unknown and inacces-
sible as the grave of Byron at Hucknall
Torkard, in Nottinghamshire.
IL your impulse is to visit Haworth,
come in the summer only. Then there is
at least sunshine. Then the fieecy clouds
straggle over and between the hills as if
shadowy hosts were marshalling behind
the horizon. Here and there Splatchcs of
color lie against old walls and house
fronts. The heather bushes from the
undulant green of the moors. And one
can then easily imagine bits of Apulian
pastoral scenery here in the shepherds
and their flocks, like cameo reliefs on
beds of dazzling emerald, with perspect-
I've OF blllowy lines and misty clouds, and
here and there savage kite or moor
buZzard circling above the scene, fierce
and endless in its hunger for unwary
heath-pCults or grouse.
But at any other time your Impress
ions, all the way from Keighley up the
little valley of the Worth River, the
stream being nowhere more than a tiny
beck" or moorland rill, will be dismal
ones indeed. This entire Yorkshire dis
trict, of which Bradford is the trade me-
trOpolis, IS given over to the manufacture
OF WorStedS. To the right and left of the
little branch of the Midland Railway,
which follows the stream up the valley
past HaWorth TO OXenhope, are clusters of
deserted Olden hand-ioom mills, rotten
welrs, grinly steam-power mills with their
huge, half-smoke-hidden chimneys, de-
caying arches, rows Of tactory-hand cot
tageS with slatternly women at the door;
gnarled, stunted trees springing meagerly
from impoverished soil in shadowy gorge
and glen; and, in tarthest reaches Of pros
pect beneath leaden-colored sky, the
grim outlines of barren hills the hollows
between showing farther, DINNER out
lines OF bleak, bare moors, suggesting the
wastes ofa mountainous-waved, measure
less sea.
The tiny Haworth Railway station
stands in the center of the horseshoe
shaped valley head to which you have
come from the north There could be no
more cherries sight than that presenting
itself in every direction as YOU alipht
from your railway carriage. The station
master, the single human in sight, in q
sparSel ly-cut, threadbare uniform. trots
around shiveringly for moment as il
feeble, starved and cold, and then snaps
himself up IN his little den with sharp
clck, as II III Hight from the surrounding
dreariness. Across the track where there
has some time been little patch of fow-
erS lonely, almost ieatherlcss, altogeth-
er bedraggled hen pecks at the dead stalks
ebly,querulously. This is all of life there
Is near the station. Over TO the left q
long distance away on the level bed of the
valley, are several huge mills. They are
prisons III every sense. The black smoke
rolls sullenly from their stacks. But no
human being IS visible. Then there are a
half score rows of Workmen's houses. lit
Tie, mean, hard and cramped, huddled in
grimy, denuded spaces, or set OH the
brae-slde III all manner of angles, as
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 interninable sweIls OF
savage, treeless hills. These circle around
To the south and west, and your eve fol-
lows them until it catches a steel-gray
line OF what at first seems ragged, Jagged
cubes OF rock, cutting IN diagonal trans
verse from the bottom TO nearly the top
OF the bare escarpment OF another bolder
hillside, terminating in the loftier drear-
Ter Haworth moor. 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-thc houses the
cutters, the rain-troughs, the gargoyle-
spouts, and the cobbled way, like an open
stone sewer cut along the hillside to carry
Off the SlnanV nNyinnG nf tho
above. There is but the single street
Main street it is called. Dank dark closes
sometimes extend for Il house-length
to the right and left. The yard-wide
pavements are series of stone stairs and
platforms. Beneath the latter are shad-
owy shops and living rooms. All stand
open; but few inhabitants are to be seem
Those of whom glimpses can be caught
are little children, still too young to be
ground in the mills and bowed old crones;
OF women already ground by the mills
into Voicelessness and shapelesSness. Up,
up, up, for mile you plod, and at last
reach tiny open space. The houses are
set around II closely. Quaint shops and
ancient inns crowd it at all sorts of Curl
Gus angles. This is the head of the will
age, geographically, in habitations and
in aristocracy. Not for its attractiveness.
but because 1t seems an outlet to some
where, You pass into Il little court behind
the Black Run Inn. 1t is maze OF angles
and wynds. Suddenly another tiny open
space confronts you. Here are an old, OBJ
long, two-storied stone house, with q few
yards OF grass-plot at its side; a little
stone church, attached to, rather than
blended with, grim Norman tower; a
graveyard cluttered with crunbling
stones, the whole covering barely an acre
OF ground. These were Haworth parson-
age, church and church-yard; the earthly,
and final, home of the Brontes, and their
living eyes ever rested on Haworth
moor which rises Immediately above the
church-yard like wall of rounded stone.
Here. within the village nest of the
mooTside eer;e, one may Ittingly pause
and recall the history of the Brontes as a
family. The father, the Rev. Patrick
HEonie, was son ola County Down Ire
land, farmer, whose real name was Prun-
~. He was born Patrickmas day, I777.
his name being changed TO Bronte ut the
suggestion OF his benefactor, the Rev. Mr..
Ilghe, Rector of Drumgooland Parish, in
Down. Fine in physique, handsome and
ambitious, he forswore peasant life, and.
much after the manner of the Poor
Scholar in Carleton's pathetic tale gained
enough learning at l6 TO teach u small
private school. soon became tutor. en-
tered St Johns College, Cambridge. in
lSo2, obtained his b. 4. degree four years
later; was ordained to n curacy, and We
lind him, ON his marriage, in 1872, TO Ma
rla Branweu, a sweet and gentle Cornish
maiden OF Pcnzance, the incumbent OF
the church living at Hartshead, a little
village near Huddersiield, twenty miles
across the lnoofs, TO the southeast of Ha-
worth. They were five years at Harts-
head. Ihon Mr.. Bronte was Transferred
10 Thornton, another Yorkshire West
Riding moorland hamlet, .'owre Inc
stalres, that is, over the stairs or bi}le.
f.AHTK ms Flgsl sf, a. .s