Chapter I: Love in a Cottage

After a brief honeymoon, spent at Warrenpoint, Alice Bronte 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 Bronte'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 Bronte 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 Bronte 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 Bronte house long before the Brontes 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 Bronte 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 Bronte'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 Bronte 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 Bronte.

Many a reader of Mrs. Gaskell's life of Charlotte Bronte 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.

Besides, the Haworth vicarage was never really as sombre as Mrs. Gaskell painted it, for Miss Ellen Nussey was a constant visitor, and she assures me that the girls were bright and happy in their home, always engaged on some project of absorbing interest, and always enjoying life in their own sober and thoughtful way.

The Bronte cottage in Emdale was very poor, but it was brightened with the perennial sunshine of love. It was love in a cottage, in which the bare walls and narrow board were golden in the light of Alice Bronte's smile. It was said in the neighborhood that Mrs. Bronte's smile "would have tamed a mad bull," and on her deathbed she thanked God that her husband had never looked upon her with a frown.

In their wedded love they were very poor, but very happy. Hugh's constant, steady work provided for the daily wants of an ever-increasing family, but it made no provision for the strain of adverse circumstances. In fact, the Emdale Brontes lived like birds, and as happy as birds.

Hugh Bronte was one of the industrious poor. The salt of his life was honest, manly toil. He had forgotten the luxury of his childhood's home, and he did not feel any degradation in his lowly lot.

In our artificial civilization we have come to place too much store on the accident of wealth. Our Blessed Saviour, whom all the rich and luxurious call "Lord," was born in as lowly a condition of comfortless poverty as Patrick Bronte. Cows are now housed in Bronte's birthplace, but our Lord was born among the animals in the _caravanserai_. And yet, in our social code, we have reduced the Decalogue to this one commandment, "Thou shalt not be poor."

Hugh Bronte did not choose poverty as his lot, but, being a working man, like the carpenter of Nazareth, he did the daily work that came to his hand, and then, side by side with Alice, he found the fulness of each day sufficient for all its wants.

The happy home was soon crowded with children, and the family removed to a larger and better house, in the townland of Lisnacreevy. The parish register of Drumballyroney Church, to which the Brontes belonged, unfortunately goes no farther back than 1779, two years after the birth of Patrick. The register, which is now kept in the parish church of Drumgooland, belonged to the united parishes of Drumballyroney and Drumgooland, in which, when united, the Reverend Mr. Tighe was vicar for forty-two years. When Patrick Bronte was two years old, less one day, his brother William was baptized, and about every two succeeding years either a brother or a sister was added until the family numbered ten.