[31] Charlotte Brontë.--Memoir prefixed to 'Wuthering Heights.' CHAPTER XVII. BRANWELL AT SOWERBY BRIDGE.--CHARLOTTE'S EXERTIONS. Branwell's Appointment at Ulverston ends--He gets a Situation on the Railroad at Sowerby Bridge--Branwell at Luddenden Foot--His Friends' Reminiscences of him--Charlotte and Emily reading French Novels--Charlotte obtains a Situation--Anxious about Anne--School Project of the Sisters--Charlotte's keen Desire to visit Brussels --Her Letter to her Aunt Branwell. If the performance of the responsible duties of his appointment at Mr. Postlethwaite's, which ended, at his father's wish, in the June of 1840, had been felt by Branwell as a banishment from the cheerful company of his Haworth acquaintances, it had been still greater from his artistic and literary friends in the neighbourhood of Bradford and Halifax. Hence he sought, with a perseverance amounting to anxiety, to obtain a post on the Leeds and Manchester Railway,--to the opening of which he had looked forward with concern--at some place in the valley of the Calder, near Halifax; and he received the appointment of clerk in charge, at the station at Sowerby Bridge. Charlotte says of Branwell's determination: 'a distant relation of mine, one Patrick Branwell, has set off to seek his fortune in the wild, wandering, adventurous, romantic, knight-errant-like capacity of clerk on the Leeds and Manchester Railroad.'[32] Branwell commenced his new occupation at Sowerby Bridge on the 1st of October, 1840, just before the opening of the line from Hebden Bridge to Normanton. [32] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. ix. As has been already seen, an acquaintance had existed between Branwell and Leyland; but now that the former had become a resident in the immediate neighbourhood, after his visits to the artist's studio had been interrupted for six months, or more, by his stay at Broughton-in-Furness, a more frequent intercourse followed between the two. It was on a bright Sunday afternoon in the autumn of 1840, at the desire of my brother, the sculptor, that I accompanied him to the station at Sowerby Bridge to see Branwell. The young railway clerk was of gentleman-like appearance, and seemed to be qualified for a much better position than the one he had chosen. In stature he was a little below the middle height; not 'almost insignificantly small,' as Mr. Grundy states, nor had he 'a downcast look;' neither was he 'a plain specimen of humanity.'[33] He was slim and agile in figure, yet of well-formed outline. His complexion was clear and ruddy, and the expression of his face, at the time, lightsome and cheerful. His voice had a ringing sweetness, and the utterance and use of his English were perfect. Branwell appeared to be in excellent spirits, and showed none of those traces of intemperance with which some writers have unjustly credited him about this period of his life.