Life of Charlotte Brontë | Page 7

Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life
among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent
and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably,
be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life;
something be derived from their rough Norse ancestry. They have a
quick perception of character, and a keen sense of humour; the dwellers
among them must be prepared for certain uncomplimentary, though
most likely true, observations, pithily expressed. Their feelings are not
easily roused, but their duration is lasting. Hence there is much close
friendship and faithful service; and for a correct exemplification of the
form in which the latter frequently appears, I need only refer the reader
of "Wuthering Heights" to the character of "Joseph."
From the same cause come also enduring grudges, in some cases
amounting to hatred, which occasionally has been bequeathed from
generation to generation. I remember Miss Bronte once telling me that
it was a saying round about Haworth, "Keep a stone in thy pocket seven
year; turn it, and keep it seven year longer, that it may be ever ready to
thine hand when thine enemy draws near."
The West Riding men are sleuth-hounds in pursuit of money. Miss
Bronte related to my husband a curious instance illustrative of this
eager desire for riches. A man that she knew, who was a small
manufacturer, had engaged in many local speculations which had
always turned out well, and thereby rendered him a person of some
wealth. He was rather past middle age, when he bethought him of
insuring his life; and he had only just taken out his policy, when he fell
ill of an acute disease which was certain to end fatally in a very few
days. The doctor, half-hesitatingly, revealed to him his hopeless state.
"By jingo!" cried he, rousing up at once into the old energy, "I shall DO
the insurance company! I always was a lucky fellow!"
These men are keen and shrewd; faithful and persevering in following
out a good purpose, fell in tracking an evil one. They are not emotional;
they are not easily made into either friends or enemies; but once lovers

or haters, it is difficult to change their feeling. They are a powerful race
both in mind and body, both for good and for evil.
The woollen manufacture was introduced into this district in the days
of Edward III. It is traditionally said that a colony of Flemings came
over and settled in the West Riding to teach the inhabitants what to do
with their wool. The mixture of agricultural with manufacturing labour
that ensued and prevailed in the West Riding up to a very recent period,
sounds pleasant enough at this distance of time, when the classical
impression is left, and the details forgotten, or only brought to light by
those who explore the few remote parts of England where the custom
still lingers. The idea of the mistress and her maidens spinning at the
great wheels while the master was abroad ploughing his fields, or
seeing after his flocks on the purple moors, is very poetical to look
back upon; but when such life actually touches on our own days, and
we can hear particulars from the lips of those now living, there come
out details of coarseness--of the uncouthness of the rustic mingled with
the sharpness of the tradesman--of irregularity and fierce
lawlessness--that rather mar the vision of pastoral innocence and
simplicity. Still, as it is the exceptional and exaggerated characteristics
of any period that leave the most vivid memory behind them, it would
be wrong, and in my opinion faithless, to conclude that such and such
forms of society and modes of living were not best for the period when
they prevailed, although the abuses they may have led into, and the
gradual progress of the world, have made it well that such ways and
manners should pass away for ever, and as preposterous to attempt to
return to them, as it would be for a man to return to the clothes of his
childhood.
The patent granted to Alderman Cockayne, and the further restrictions
imposed by James I. on the export of undyed woollen cloths (met by a
prohibition on the part of the States of Holland of the import of
English-dyed cloths), injured the trade of the West Riding
manufacturers considerably. Their independence of character, their
dislike of authority, and their strong powers of thought, predisposed
them to rebellion against the religious dictation of such men as Laud,
and the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts; and the injury done by James and
Charles to the trade by which they gained their bread, made the great
majority of them Commonwealth men. I shall have