We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the ‘Black Bull,’ where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontë began, owing to the frequent occasions when ‘Patrick,’ as he was familiarly called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important patrons. A not unpicturesque passage just above this inn leads to the church, the schools, and the ‘parsonage.’ Everything that is not a recent accretion is built of stone, and generally roofed with stone slabs also, all, however, of that blackish hue that needs creepers, white window-frames, and bright-coloured shutters and doors, to relieve the gauntness. Such cheerful touches are lacking in Haworth, and no doubt the want of colour in their surroundings accounted for much of the morbid melancholy so marked in the children who grew up in the sombre house. We cannot see to-day the church the Brontës knew. With the exception of the tower, it has been rebuilt, and even the old pulpit and sounding-board of Mr. Brontë’s time are not to be seen. The verger knows of their existence in a barn, and perhaps one day the Brontë Society will contrive to have them replaced in the church. Many pilgrims to Haworth would find more pleasure in seeing an object which must have been so extremely familiar to Charlotte and her sisters, than in examining the very pathetic and often painful mementoes in the society’s museum in the village. We are not far enough removed from the times of the Brontës to make it seemly to exhibit in glass cases garments, and obviously inexpensive boots, worn by Charlotte. The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontës’ house looked, as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the south, it is conceivable that the Brontës would have enjoyed better health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her father were the only survivors of the family, gives a [Illustration: HAWORTH CHURCH AND ‘PARSONAGE’ From this point of view the home of the Brontës is almost unaltered since the day when Charlotte, the last of Mr. Patrick Brontë’s family, died. The church has been rebuilt with the exception of the tower, but this and the other changes do not make themselves apparent from this side. Behind are the moors where Charlotte and her sisters, particularly Emily, loved to take lonely walks.]