One evening, after a long day on the moors, the party came, late in the afternoon, to the Yorkshire village of Haworth. To David it was a village like any other. He was already mortally tired of the whole business--of the endless hills, the company, the bleak grey weather. While the rest of the party were mopping brows and draining ale-pots in the farmers' public, he was employing himself in aimlessly kicking a stone about one of the streets, when he was accosted by a woman of the shopkeeping class, a decent elderly woman, who had come out for a mouthful of air, with a child dragging after her.
'Yoong mester, yo've coom fro a distance, hannot yo?'
The woman's tone struck the boy pleasantly as though it had been a phrase of cheerful music. There was a motherliness in it--a something, for which, perhaps all unknown to himself, his secret heart was thirsting.
'Fro Masholme,' he said, looking at her full, so that she could see all the dark, richly coloured face she had had a curiosity to see; then he added abruptly, 'We're bound Kinder way wi t' sheep--reet t'other side o' t' Scout.'
The woman nodded. 'Aye, I know a good mony o' your Kinder foak. They've coom by here a mony year passt. But I doan't know as I've seen yo afoor. Yo're nobbut a yoong 'un. Eh, but we get sich a sight of strangers here now, the yan fairly drives the tother out of a body's mind.'
'Doos foak coom for t' summer?' asked David, lifting his eyebrows a little, and looking round on the bleak and straggling village.
'Noa, they coom to see the church. Lor' bless ye!' said the good woman, following his eyes towards the edifice and breaking into a laugh, ''taint becos the church is onything much to look at. 'Taint nowt out o' t' common that I knows on. Noa--but they coom along o't' monument, an' Miss Bronte--Mrs. Nicholls, as should be, poor thing--rayder.'
There was no light of understanding in David's face, but his penetrating eyes, the size and beauty of which she could not help observing, seemed to invite her to go on.
'You niver heerd on our Miss Bronte?' said the woman, mildly. 'Well, I spose not. She was just a bit quiet body. Nobbody hereabouts saw mich in her. But she wrote bukes--tales, yo know--tales about t' foak roun here; an they do say, them as has read 'em, 'at they're terr'ble good. Mr. Watson, at t' Post Office, he's read 'em, and he's allus promised to lend 'em me. But soomhow I doan't get th' time. An in gineral I've naw moor use for a book nor a coo has for clogs. But she's terr'ble famous, is Miss Bronte, now--an her sisters too, pore young women. Yo should see t' visitors' book in th' church. Aw t' grand foak as iver wor. They cooms fro Lunnon a purpose, soom ov 'em, an they just takes a look roun t' place, an writes their names, an goos away. Would yo like to see th' church?' said the good-natured creature--looking at the tall lad beside her with an admiring scrutiny such as every woman knows she may apply to any male. 'I'm goin that way, an it's my brother 'at has th' keys.'