Hugh was greatly disappointed to find his niece so small and frail. His pride in the Brontë superiority had rested mainly on the thews and comeliness of the family, and he found it difficult to associate mental greatness with physical littleness. On his return home he spoke of the vicar’s family to Mr. McKee as “a poor frachther” a term applied to a brood of young chickens. From his brother Jamie, Hugh had heard that Branwell had something of the spunk he had expected from the family on English soil; but he was too small, fantastic, and a chatterer, and could not drink more than two glasses of whiskey at the Black Bull without making a fool of himself. In fact, Jamie, during a visit, had to carry Branwell home, more than once, from that refuge of the thirsty, and as he had to lie in the same bed with his nephew he found him a most exasperating bed-fellow. He would toss about and rave and spout poetry in such a way as to make sleep impossible.
The declaration of Hugh’s mission of revenge was received by Charlotte with incredulous astonishment, but gentle Anne sympathized with him, and wished him success; but for her, Hugh would have returned straight home from Haworth in disgust.
Patrick, as befitted a clergyman, condemned the undertaking, and did what he could to amuse Hughy. Careful that Hugh’s entertainments should be to his taste, he took him to see a prize fight. His object was to show him “a battle that would take the conceit out of him.” It had the contrary effect. Hugh thought that the combatants were too fat and lazy to fight, and he always asserted that he could have “licked them both.”
The vicar also took him to Sir John Armitage’s, where he saw a collection of arms, some of which were exceedingly unwieldy. Hugh was greatly impressed with the heaviness of the armor, and especially with Robin Hood’s helmet, which he was allowed to place on his head. Hugh admitted that he could not have worn the helmet or wielded the sword, but he maintained at the same time that he “could have eaten half a dozen of the men he saw in England”—in fact, taken them like a dish of whitebait.
When Hugh Brontë had exhausted the wonders of Yorkshire, to which the vicar looked for moral effect, he 179 started on his mission to London. A full and complete account of his search for the reviewer would be most interesting, though somewhat ludicrous, but the reader must be content with the scrappy information at my disposal.
Through an introduction from a friend of Branwell’s he found cheap lodgings with a working family from Haworth. As soon as Hugh had got fairly settled, he went direct to John Murray’s publishing house and asked to see the reviewer. He declared himself an uncle of Currer Bell, and said he wished to give the reviewer some specific information.
He had a short interview at Murray’s with a man who said he was the editor of “The Quarterly,” and who may have been Lockhart, but Hugh told him that he could only communicate to the reviewer his secret message.
He continued to visit Murray’s under a promise of seeing the reviewer, but he always saw the same man who at first had said that he was editor, but afterwards assured him he was the reviewer, and pressed him greatly to say who Currer Bell was.
Hugh declined to make any statement except into the ear of the reviewer; but as the truculent character of the avenger was probably very apparent, his direct and bold move did not succeed, and at last they ceased to admit him at Murray’s.
Having failed there, he went to the publishers of “Jane Eyre,” and told them plainly he was the author’s uncle, and that he had come to London to chastise the “Quarterly Review” critic. They treated him civilly without furthering his quest, but he got from them, I believe, an introduction to the reading-room of the British Museum, and to some other reading-rooms.