Bit there's rough doins on t' moors soomtimes, I'll uphowd yo! An Miss Emily had eyes like gimlets--they seed reet through a body.

Deary me,' she cried, the fountain of gossip opening more and more, 'to think I should ha known 'em in pinafores, Mr.Patrick an aw!' And under the stress of what was really a wonder at the small beginnings of fame--a wonder which much repetition of her story had only developed in her--she poured out upon her companion the history of the Brontes; of that awful winter in which three of that weird band--Emily, Patrick, Anne--fell away from Charlotte's side, met the death which belonged to each, and left Charlotte alone to reap the harvest of their common life through a few burning years; of the publication of the books; how the men of the Mechanics' Institute (the roof of which she pointed out to him) went crazy over 'Shirley'; how everybody about 'thowt Miss Bronte had bin puttin ov 'em into prent,' and didn't know whether to be pleased or pique; how, as the noise made by 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' grew, a wave of excitement passed through the whole countryside, and people came from Halifax, and Bradford, and Huddersfield--aye, an Lunnon soomtoimes '-- to Haworth church on a Sunday, to see the quiet body at her prayers who had made all the stir; how Mr.Nicholls, the curate, bided his time and pressed his wooing; how he won her as Rachel was won; and how love did but open the gate of death, and the fiery little creature--exhausted by such an energy of living as had possessed her from her cradle--sank and died on the threshold of her new life.

All this Charlotte Bronte's townswoman told simply and garrulously, but she told it well because she had felt and seen.
'She wor so sma' and nesh; nowt but a midge.

Theer was no lasst in her.

Aye, when I heerd the bell tolling for Miss Charlotte that Saturday mornin,' said the speaker, shaking her head as she moved away towards the church, 'I cud ha sat down an cried my eyes out.
But if she'd ha seen me she'd ha nobbut said, "Martha, get your house straight, an doan't fret for me!" She had sich a sperrit, had Miss Charlotte.