The Brontes

THE BRONTES 2$
Thornton, and at Thornton were born Charlotte,
on April 2ist, 1816 ; Patrick Branwell, on June
26th, 1817 ; Emily Jane, on July goth, 1818, and
Anne, on January lyth, 1820. There were, there-
fore, six children under the age of seven, the
youngest a baby about three months old, stowed
away in one of those carts that lumbered up the
village street of Haworth in April of 1820 and,
taking the turning by the church, unloaded at the
door of the Parsonage.
Curious, and perhaps some hostile or, at all
events, critical eyes watched that procession and
arrival. There had been a rumpus in the parish
over the presentation of Mr. Bronte to the living.
This was not on grounds of personal objection to
him but because the presentation and the control
of funds which provided part of the parson's
stipend were in different hands, and the local
Trustees of the latter had not, apparently3 been
consulted as to the appointment. Mr. Bronte, to
avoid difficulties on this account, kept himself
strictly within his duties when he first went to
Haworth. He commenced these, two months or
so before he removed his wife and family from
Thornton ; he may have waited, on account of
these troubles, to shift the household, or because,
in February, his wife had not yet recovered from
the birth of the last baby.
Circumstances, therefore, at the outset, were
against any very friendly relationship being estab-
lished between the Parsonage and the village, and
Mrs. Bronte's illness from cancer which started
. not long afterwards must have kept the situation,