A., _I leave
and bequeath the residue of my personal estate of every description
which I shall be possessed of at my death for his own absolute
benefit_; _And I make him my sole executor_; _And I revoke all former
and other Wills_, _in witness whereof I_, _the said_ PATRICK BRONTE,
_have to this my last Will_, _contained in this sheet of paper_, _set
my hand this twentieth day of June_, _one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-five_.
PATRICK BRONTE.--_Signed and acknowledged by the said_ PATRICK BRONTE
_as his Will in the presence of us present at the same time_, _and
who in his presence and in the presence of each other have hereunto
subscribed our names as witnesses_: JOSEPH REDMAN, ELIZA BROWN.
The Irish relatives are not forgotten, and indeed this will gives the
most direct evidence of the fact that for the sixty years that he had
been absent from his native land he had always kept his own country, or
at least his relatives in County Down, sufficiently in mind.
CHAPTER II: CHILDHOOD
Eighty years have passed over Thornton since that village had the honour
of becoming the birthplace of Charlotte Bronte. The visitor of to-day
will find the Bell Chapel, in which Mr. Bronte officiated, a mere ruin,
and the font in which his children were baptized ruthlessly exposed to
the winds of heaven.
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