STRANGER THAN FICTION.
LOVE IN A COTTAGE. THE IRISH STORY-TELLER. HUGH BRONTË AS A TENANT-RIGHTER.
Stories of the Brontë Family in Ireland.
By Dr. William Wright.
I.
LOVE IN A COTTAGE.
After a brief honeymoon, spent at Warrenpoint, Alice Brontë returned, on her brother’s invitation, to her old home, and Hugh went back to complete his term of service in Loughorne. It soon became desirable that his wife should have a home of her own, and he took a cottage in Emdale, in the parish of Drumballyroney, with which Drumgooland was united at the time.
The house stands near crossroads leading to important towns. In a direct line it is about three and three-quarters statute miles from Rathfriland, seven and three-quarters from Newry, twelve from Warrenpoint, and five and a quarter from Banbridge. The exact position of the house, is on the north-west side of the old road, leading, in Hugh Brontë’s day, to Newry and Warrenpoint. Almost opposite, on the other side of the road, there was a blacksmith’s shop, which still continues to be a blacksmith’s shop. The Brontë house remains, though partially in ruins.
The house is now used as a byre, but its dimensions are exactly the same as when it became the home of Hugh Brontë and his bride. The rent then would be about sixpence per week, and would, in accordance with the general custom, be paid by one day’s work in the week, with board, the work being given in the busy season.
The house consisted of two rooms. That over which the roof still stands was without chimney, and was used as bedroom and parlor, and the outer room, from which the roof has fallen, was used as a corn-kiln, and also as kitchen and reception-room.
A farmer’s wife, whose ancestors lived close to the Brontë house long before the Brontës were heard of in County Down, pointing to a spot in the corner of the byre opposite to the window, said: “There is the very spot where the Reverend Patrick Brontë was born.” Then she added, “Numbers of great folk have asked me about his birthplace, but och! how could I tell them that any dacent man was ever born in such a place!” This feeling on the part of the neighbors will probably account for the fact that everything written thus far regarding Patrick Brontë’s birthplace is wrong, neither the townland, nor even the parish of his birth, being correctly given.
In the lowly cottage in Emdale, now known as “The Kiln,” and used as a cowhouse, Patrick Brontë was born, on the 17th of March, 1777. Men have risen to fame from a lowly origin, but few men have ever emerged from humbler circumstances than Patrick Brontë.
Many a reader of Mrs. Gaskell’s life of Charlotte Brontë has been saddened by the picture of the vicar’s daughters amid their narrow and grim surroundings, but the gray vicarage of Haworth was a palace compared with the hovel in which the vicar himself was born and reared.