Bronte possessed
during the later years of his life. From both he had obtained much
innocent amusement; but his son-in-law, Mr. Nicholls, who, at the
distance of forty years still cherishes a reverent and enthusiastic
affection for old Mr. Bronte, informs me that the bullet marks upon
Haworth Church were the irresponsible frolic of a rather juvenile
curate--Mr. Smith. All this is trivial enough in any case, and one turns
very readily to more important factors in the life of the father of the
Brontes. Patrick Bronte was born at Ahaderg, County Down, in Ireland, on
St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1777. He was one of the ten children of
Hugh Brunty, farmer, and his nine brothers and sisters seem all of them
to have spent their lives in their Irish home, to have married and been
given in marriage, and to have gone to their graves in peace. Patrick
alone had ambition, and, one must add, the opportune friend, without whom
ambition counts for little in the great struggle of life. At sixteen he
was a kind of village schoolmaster, or assistant schoolmaster, and at
twenty-five, stirred thereto by the vicar of his parish, Mr. Tighe, he
was on his way from Ireland to St. John's College, Cambridge. It was in
1802 that Patrick Bronte went to Cambridge, and entered his name in the
college books. There, indeed, we find the name, not of Patrick Bronte,
but of Patrick Branty, {28} and this brings us to an interesting point as
to the origin of the name.
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