Brontes had lived there. They had pined for Haworth when away. Emily had
written about the "spot 'mid barren hills, where winter howls, and
driving rain." They had thought there, worked there, the wondrous
sisters; they had illuminated the mean place, and made it a lodestar for
the world.

When we reached the top of the hill (which was almost like reaching a
ceiling after climbing the side of a hideous brown-painted wall), I
forgot my own troubles in thinking of the Brontes' tragedy of poverty,
disappointment, and death.

We were in a poor street of a peculiarly depressing village, and could
not even see the moor that had given the Bronte girls inspiration,
though we knew it must stretch beyond. Even in bright sunshine there
could be no beauty in Haworth; but under that leaden sky, in the thick
mist of rain, the poor stone houses lining the way, the sordid,
unattractive shops were positively repellent. All that was not so dark a
gray as to look black was dull brown; and not a single window-pane had a
gleam of intelligence for the unwelcome strangers. I could imagine no
merriment in Haworth, nor any sound of laughter; yet the Brontes were
happy when they were children--at least, they thought they were; but it
would be too tragic if children didn't _think_ themselves happy.

There was the Black Bull Inn, where wretched Bramwell Bronte used to
carouse. Poor, weak vain-glorious fellow! I never pitied him till I saw
that gloomy stone box which meant "seeing life" to him. There was the
museum where the Bronte relics are kept--but we delayed going in that we
might see the old parsonage first, the shrine where the preserved relics
had once made "home." Oh, mother, the sadness of it, tucked away among
the crowding tombstones, all gray-brown together, among weeds and early
falling leaves! Here already it was autumn; and though I could fancy a
pale, frosty spring, and a white, ice-bound winter, my imagination could
conjure up no richness of summer.

[Illustration: "_The foaming cauldron of the Strid_"]

The gravestones crowding the gray old house in the churchyard, pushing
it back toward the moor, were thick as an army on parade--a sad, starved
army, where dying soldiers lean on each other for support; and the
parsonage, shadowed by dripping trees, was plain and uncompromising as a
sermon that warns you not to love the world or you will spend eternity
in hell. But behind--just beyond the wall--billowed the moor, monotonous