Brony

“ Bess and Judy were established in a handsome house of their own, and every day had cause to bless the good King Brondé and his Lily Queen.
Thus, as was before observed, the years flew happily on. But when years fly on, though never so happily, they carry us along with them. And the happy years that were flying on at the palace were taking King Brondé and his queen towards old age, were taking Myrtle out of his childhood, and changing our Rosebud to a full-blown rose. ”

“ You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?”
“What made you think so?”
“Your look—your manner.”
“But look at me now—”
“Oh! you are different now: at present, I dare speak to you.”
“Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman behind me in the Hollow: your kinsman alone stands before you.”
“My cousin, Robert; not Mr. Moore.”
“Not a bit of Mr. Moore. Caroline—”
Here the company was heard rising in the other room; the door was opened; the pony-carriage was ordered; shawls and bonnets were demanded; Mr. Helstone called for his niece.
“I must go, Robert.” ”

“ Brondé, therefore, visited the palace. And the king was so charmed with his lofty stature, his noble air, and his fine appearance, that he must needs have him among his own private guards, and very soon made him captain over them all. And it was soon found that this great soldier was as good as he was great, and as gentle as he was strong. For never in his life had he used his strength to oppress the weak ”

“ Now when this declaration of the princess was made known, it caused great commotion among the young nobles of the court. All were examining their locks, and longing to know the color of that which the king’s Lily had discovered in coming from the mountain.
Brondé sent in one of his fair curls with the rest, and was, of course, the lucky winner. For not one in the whole court had hair so soft and of so beautiful a color as he.
And he soon found that the heart of the princess was quite large enough to love even so big a fellow as himself. ”

“ Bronnen felt vexed at the king's silence and averted looks. He could stand it no longer and, at last, feeling that, at such a moment etiquette could be disregarded, he said:
"I think that few men are great-minded enough to keep all knowledge of their conquests to themselves."
This remark had a double meaning, and Bronnen would not have been surprised if the king had turned upon him with a crushing reply. He felt defiant and yet composed. The man to whom he had revealed his soul's secret, must not act as if nothing had happened; he must answer for himself. ”

“ From their first going to Haworth, their walks were directed rather out towards the heathery moors, sloping upwards behind the parsonage, than towards the long descending village street. A good old woman, who came to nurse Mrs. Brontë in the illness—an internal cancer—which grew and gathered upon her, not many months after her arrival at Haworth, tells me that at that time the six little creatures used to walk out, hand in hand, towards the glorious wild moors, which in after days they loved so passionately; the elder ones taking thoughtful care for the toddling wee things. ”

“ Brones drank liquor to keep himself from catching cold, and the more he drank the more talkative he became. He began to boast that he was a rich man, but when Hill asked him where he got his wealth, he was shrewd enough not to say. He did say, however, that he had come out of the St. Francis. Hill guessed the rest. When Brones was stupefied, the shanty-boater discovered the little sack and saw the gem. He cackled a queer laugh. Replacing the pearl with a musket-ball, he carried Brones up the wharf to a pile of cotton-bales, and there left him asleep. ”

“ I admit that I was a bit hasty in losing my temper at Bronty; but when a man takes it into his head to talk as he did to my wife, right under my nose, I'm going to rough him up a bit, even though he is my friend and my guest. ”

“ But very often his Lily Queen would say to him: “My dear Brondé, we are now too happy. Surely some evil will soon befall us.”
Then would Brondé encircle the child with his arms, and say, “O, may this precious one, at least, be kept from harm.”
But the Lily Queen, sighing, would murmur softly to herself, “Ah, she is too bright, too lovely a flower for earth!”
As Rosebud grew older, she showed great delight in birds, squirrels, wild flowers, and everything which lived or grew in the woods, and her attendants had plenty to do in following her up and down about the country. ”

“ To obviate this publication of what it might be desirable to keep secret, Miss Brontë used to take her out for a walk on the solitary moors; where, when both were seated on a tuft of heather, in some high lonely place, she could acquaint the old woman, at leisure, with all that she wanted to hear.
Tabby had lived in Haworth in the days when the pack-horses went through once a week, with their tinkling bells and gay worsted adornment, carrying the produce of the country from Keighley over the hills to Colne and Burnley. ”

“ About the third week in August, Arthur set out for Scotland, and Mr. Hargrave accompanied him thither, to my private satisfaction. Shortly after, I, with little Arthur and Rachel, went to Staningley, my dear old home, which, as well as my dear old friends its inhabitants, I saw again with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain so intimately blended that I could scarcely distinguish the one from the other, or tell to which to attribute the various tears, and smiles, and sighs awakened by those old familiar scenes, and tones, and faces. ”

“ And why if Borron, or any other French poet, wanted to connect the Holy Vessel legend which he had imagined with Arthur, should he go out of his way to invent the personages of Brons and Alain? The story as found in the Queste would surely have been a far more natural one for him. And why the insistence upon Avalon? We have plain proof that Borron did not understand the word, as he explains it by a ridiculous pun (supra, p. 78) . [142]
These difficulties are met in a large measure if we look upon [Pg 223] Bran (Brons) as the starting point of the Christian transformation of the legend. ”

“ But the name Brons has at once suggested to most students of the cycle that of Bran. The latter is, as we saw in the last Chapter, the representative of an old Celtic god of the otherworld. He is the owner of the cauldron of renovation. He is also the hero in Welsh tradition of a conversion legend, and is commonly known as Bran the Blessed. Unfortunately the only explanation we have of this epithet occurs in a late triad, to which it is not safe to assign an earlier date than the fourteenth century. ”

“ Bronnen's countenance seemed illumined with a ray of purest joy.
"A bright, unclouded spirit is with us."
"Let her memory be held in honor."
"I do not mean her," said Bronnen. "When I spoke to Count Eberhard, he said: 'Honor pledges us to morality; fame, still more so; and power, most of all.'"
The king and Bronnen discussed many other topics. With his friend, the king could frankly and unreservedly show the change which had taken place in him. But with the world, the court, and the country at large, it behooved him to avail himself of more gradual methods. A king dare not publicly repent. ”

“ She went to Yorkshire, and with sweating, panting horses climbed a black moor and came to a stone-cold village where even the roofs were of stones and no flowers brightened. At the head of the one street was a churchyard where the dead lay so close there was scarce room for grass. The dead seemed to push against the living and only a feeble lilac hedge held them back from the parsonage where the genius-stricken Brontes had lived and died. ”

“ He was the wood-cutter, whose little boy and girl Rosebud had saved from the boat,—that little boy and girl with whom she ran, hand in hand, along the forest paths, calling as they ran, “Tirra, Tirra, Tirra, Tirra La!” She was kind and good to them always, and he felt grateful, and longed to do her a service. When King Brondé was overpowered in Green Hollow, on the day of the lion hunt, he kept close by his side. It was he, who, with the tip of his sword, thrust the little vial under the plantain-leaf, and afterwards escaped with it. ”

“ To his apprehensive mind a raid on a plant in the Bronx could mean only one place––the little map-making shop of Jimmy Brunell. Something had happened in his absence; some one had betrayed the old forger. And Emily––what of her?
Morrow sped as fast as elevated and subway could carry him to the Bronx. Anxious as he was about the girl he loved, he did not go directly to the house on Meadow Lane, but made a detour to the little shop a few blocks away. ”

“ By the command of God, Brons, Joseph's brother-in-law, caught a Fish, which, with the Grail, provided a mystic meal of which the unworthy cannot partake; thus the sinners were separated from the righteous. Henceforward Brons was known as 'The Rich Fisher.' It is noteworthy, however, that in the Perceval romance, ascribed to Borron, the title is as a rule, Roi Pescheur, not Riche Pescheur. [6]
In this romance the King is not suffering from any special malady, but is the victim of extreme old age ”

“ For about a year they were left entirely to their own devices, and to the rough care of kind-hearted, busy servants. They devised plays about great men, read the newspapers, and worshipped the Duke of Wellington, strolled over the moors at their own sweet will, knowing and caring absolutely for no creature outside the walls of their own home. To these free, hardy, independent little creatures Mr. Brontë announced one morning that their maiden aunt from Cornwall, their mother's eldest sister, was coming to superintend their education.
"Miss Branwell was a very small, antiquated little lady. ”

“ Michael the Prince of Messengers—to him was dedicated the little church on the hill at Haworth, in the Parish of Bradford, Yorkshire, whose living gave sustenance to the family of the restless, ambitious son of Erin, Patrick Brontë. [5] Is it for nothing that a spiritual banner is raised by man and appeal made for the beneficent influence of a conception of definite personal character? Within this sacred circumscription came to be written the works of Charlotte Brontë, and herefrom the words of a Messenger went out to the uttermost parts of the world. ”

“ Bronte got through school and came out with tuppence worth of honors. When thirty, we find him established as curate at the shabby little town of Hartshead, in Yorkshire. Little Miss Branwell, from Penzance, came up there on a visit to her uncle, and the Reverend Mr. Bronte at once fell violently in love with her dainty form and gentle ways. I say "violently," for that's the kind of man Bronte was. Darwin says, "The faculty of amativeness is not aroused except by the unfamiliar." Girls who go away visiting, wearing their best bib and tucker, find lovers without fail. ”

“ This was Sir Robert Floyer, who perceiving the party at some distance, no sooner observed Mr Marriot in such company, than advancing to the box with an air of rage and defiance, he told Mr Harrel he had something to say to him.
"Ay," cried Harrel, "say to me? and so have I to say to you! Come amongst us and be merry! Here, make room, make way! Sit close, my friends!"
Sir Robert, who now saw he was in no situation to be reasoned with, stood for a moment silent; and then, looking round the box, and observing Messrs Hobson and Simkins, he exclaimed aloud "Why what queer party have you got into? ”

“ She did look up, but she speedily looked down again. Her master’s eye was insupportable; it burned absolutely with infernal fire! ‘What is he going to say?’ murmured Miss Laury to herself. She trembled.
‘I say, love,’ pursued the individual, drawing her a little closer to him, ‘I will give you as a reward a husband. Don’t start, now! And that husband shall be a nobleman; and that nobleman is called Lord Hartford! Now, stand up and let me look at you.’
He opened his arms and Miss Laury sprang erect like a loosened bow.
‘Your Grace is anticipated,’ she said. ”

“ The horse, freshly taken from the fields, is driven by a youth who, in spite of his countrified dress, is no mere bumpkin. His shock of red hair hangs down in somewhat ragged locks behind his ears, for Branwell Brontë esteems himself a genius and a poet, and, following the fashion of the times, has that abhorrence of the barber's shears which genius is supposed to affect. ”

“ The winds, the clouds, Nature and life, must be the friends of those who would love the moors.
But young Mrs. Brontë never could go on the moors. She was frail and weak, poor woman, when she came to live in the oblong grey stone parsonage on the windy top of the hill. The village ran sheer down at her feet; but she could not walk down the steep rough-paven street, nor on the pathless moors. She was very ill and weak; her husband spent nearly all his time in the study, writing his poems, his tracts, and his sermons. She had no companions but the children. ”

“ My father may, and I dare say has, just reasons for esteeming him, though no one but himself can discover them. Every one else dislikes him, and I shall most truly rejoice when he takes himself away."
"My dear girl, (said Lady de Morney,) consider the Baron's rank, and the dignity of his character."
"I do consider them (she replied) as the greatest misfortunes that could happen to any one, unless accompanied with good humour and humility; but I think it particularly hard that other must suffer so many mortifications because the Baron is a great man." ”