The visit to McClory's in County Down was another momentous step in
the life of Hugh Bronte. He had shaken off the nightmare of cruel
slavery. His work, mostly in the open air, suited him. He was well
paid, had good food and clothing, and in two years the starved and
ragged boy had become a large, handsome, well-dressed man. Like most
handsome people, Hugh knew that he was handsome, and the resources of
Dundalk were taxed in those days to the utmost to set off to
perfection his manly and stately figure.
On Christmas Eve Hugh Bronte drove up furiously in a Newry gig to the
house of McClory in Ballynaskeagh. He was a somewhat vain man, and
fond of admiration, and, no doubt, as he approached McClory's thatched
cottage, with his pockets full of money, and with the self-confidence
which prosperity breeds, he meant to flutter the house with his
greatness.
But a surprise was in store for him. The cottage door was opened, in
response to his somewhat boisterous knock, by a young woman of
dazzling beauty. Hugh Bronte, previous to his flight, had seen few
women except his Aunt Mary, and in the days of his freedom he had
become acquainted only with lodging-house keepers and County Louth
women who carried their fowl and eggs to Dundalk fairs and markets. He
had scarcely ever seen a comely girl, and never in his life any one
who had any attractions for him.
The simply dressed, artless girl who opened the door was probably the
prettiest girl in County Down at the time. The rector of Magherally,
who married her, pronounced her the most beautiful woman he had ever
seen. Her hair, which hung in a profusion of ringlets round her
shoulders, was luminous gold. Her forehead was Parian marble. Her
evenly set teeth were lustrous pearls, and the roses of health glowed
on her cheeks. She had the long brown eyelashes that in Ireland so
often accompany golden hair, and her deep brown eyes had the violet
tint and melting expression which, in a diluted form, descended to her
granddaughters, and made the plain and irregular faces of the Bronte
girls really attractive. The eyes also contained the lambent fire that
Mrs. Gaskell noticed in Charlotte's eyes, ready to flash indignation
and scorn. She had a tall and stately figure, with head well poised
above a graceful neck and well-formed bust; but she did not
communicate these graces of form to her granddaughters. There are
people still living who remember the stately old woman, "Alys Bronte,"
as she was called by her neighbors in her old age.
Hugh Bronte was completely unmanned by the radiant beauty of the
simple country girl who stood before him. He stood awkwardly staring
at her with his mouth open, working with his hat, and trying in vain
to say something. At last he stammered out a question about Mr.
McClory, and the girl, who was Alice McClory, told him that her
brother would soon be home, and invited him into the house.
He entered, blushing and feeling uncomfortable, but the unaffected
simplicity of Alice McClory's manner soon put him at his ease, and
before the brother Patrick, known afterwards as "Red Paddy," had
returned home, he was madly and hopelessly in love with his sister.
Like his son, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, in England, and like the
Irish curate who proposed marriage to Charlotte on the strength of one
night's acquaintance, Hugh, dazzled by beauty and blinded by love,
declared his passion before he had discovered any signs of mutual
liking, or had any evidence that his advances would be agreeable.
Alice, in simple, but cold and business-like manner, told him that she
did not yet know him; but that as he was a Protestant, and she a
Catholic, there was an insuperable bar between them.
Hugh urged that he himself had no religion, never having darkened a
church door, and that he was quite willing to be anything she wished
him to be.
Alice met his earnest pleadings with playful sallies which
disconcerted him, and little by little she led him to the story of his
life, episodes of which she had heard from her brother. Pity melts the
heart to love, and Alice was moved greatly by Hugh's simple
narrative.