Chapter XVIII.

Montagu has a boy-guide "adapted Says Catherine Linton to the boy to show the prominent features Hareton:--"I want ... to hear to strangers." He takes Montagu about the _fairishes_, as you on to Malham, where Montagu sees call them.".... Hareton opened the Fairy Cave. This boy-guide the mysteries of the Fairy Cave was called Robert Airton, and he and twenty other queer places. was aged twelve.[31] But ... I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite.

The name of Linton appears in Montagu in the letter next that in which he describes the Fairy Cave. We may understand that Charlotte Brontë's romantic imagination was entranced, as she says Catherine Linton's was, with the mention of the Fairy Cave; and _Jane Eyre_ is testimony that after writing _Wuthering Heights_ she turned again to consider its possibilities of suggestion.

In fact, I find that Charlotte Brontë when she chose the name of Janet Eyre for herself was also calling herself the Fairy Janet. And where, then, read Charlotte Brontë of the fairy Janet Eyre? The evidence of Montagu's work proves that when she wrote the name Eyre, she was implying by this Derbyshire variant the name Aire or Ayre, meaning the river Ayre. Where acquired Charlotte Brontë so intimate an acquaintance with the history of the Fairy Janet of the Aire as to take upon herself poetically, the rôle of that Craven elf and her name?

Mr. Harry Speight recently, in _The Craven Highlands_, told us "the Fairy Jennet or Janet was queen of the Malhamdale elves" who frequented the enchanted ground round the source of the Aire. But prior to Montagu's dealing with Janet's Cave, the home of the Malhamdale fays, the queen-elf had been referred to as Gennet. Montagu spelt the name Jannet, and later writers having referred to him, the fairy cave now bears the name Janet's Cave. A Malham writer prior to Montagu referred only briefly to the Fairy Cave, and quite prosily. In his Malham letter Montagu says:--

"Leaving a farmhouse at the entrance of the vale to the left, we [he and his boy-guide] proceeded over two fields, then ascended about twenty yards, suddenly turned an acute angle, and penetrating some bushes we stood at the entrance of a deep and narrow glen, before a perpendicular fall of water. At the foot of this cascade is

JANNET'S CAVE.

It is so called from the queen or governess of a numerous tribe of faeries, which tradition assures us anciently held their court here; and as there may be some of my readers who may like at the moonlit hour to be entertained at one of Jannet's banquets, I will give an idea as to the mode of obtaining admission into such society.... On the evening when I first learned the mystic lore, the golden sun had kissed every flower, even unto the retiring lily, and was gliding westward when, from the heart's couch of a moss rose, there came the eldest daughter of faeryland, probably the self-same Jannet's daughter, saying:--

'I have come from whence Peace with white sceptre wafting to and fro, Smooths the wide bosom of the Elysian world,'

and who, upon being informed that I was desirous of swearing allegiance to her sweet mother, said that she would bring intelligence whether I might be admitted to her pretty vassalage; she then bade her attendants bring her car, which was a leaf of a favourite hyacinth, drawn by two lady-birds who were guided by reins of gossamer; the mellow horn of the herald bee summoned her attendants, who, to the number of twenty, obeyed the call; and taking the coronets from off their brows, made low obeisance to their young princess, which she pleasingly acknowledged. Then they each captured a sphere of thistle-down, and seating themselves thereon, followed their princess; who, attended by her guards, each armed with a maiden's eye-lash, journeyed onwards towards the realms of enchanted ground. I should think that not many minutes elapsed when the cavalcade returned, and the charter written upon the leaf of a 'forget-me-not,' with the gold from a butterfly's wing, was placed into my hand by 'a fay,' with injunctions not to divulge the secrets of the order. I would have promised but awoke from this pleasant dream."

We will now read Montagu's description of the Fairy Janet, and a fairy coming to him at sundown when adapted by Charlotte Brontë in _Jane Eyre_.

Adèle asks Rochester whether she is to go to school without her governess, Jane Eyre:--

"Yes," he replied; ... "for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me."

"... But you can't get her there...."

"Adèle ... late one evening ... I sat down to rest me on a stile ... when something came up the path.... Our speechless colloquy was to this effect--

"It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said.... It told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale.... I said I should like to go.... 'Oh,' returned the fairy.... 'Here is a talisman which will remove all difficulties' and she held out a pretty gold ring...."

"But what has mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] to do with it? I don't care for the fairy...."

"Mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously.

But Adèle assures him she made no account of his "_contes de fée_."

For the present it is enough to know that in the main and ostensibly the Fairy Janet Eyre was Charlotte Brontë's adaptation of Montagu's Fairy Janet, the queen-elf of the Malhamdale fairies, said to frequent the enchanted land round the source of the Aire.

The fairy idea, Charlotte discovered, served well to give a certain gallantry to Rochester's bestowing of epithets. These the reader may have interest in finding in _Jane Eyre_. For instance, when Jane, returning from her visit to a dead relative, informs Rochester, he says:--

"A true _Janian_ reply! [italics mine]. Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are dead, and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue _ignis-fatuus_ light in the marsh."

A few lines lower Rochester asks:--

"Tell me, now, fairy as you are--can't you give a charm?"

And then farther down:

"Pass, Janet: go up home and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."

When Rochester's bed is in flames, and he awakes to find Janet has thrown water upon it, he demands:--

"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?"

And so I might continue. It is observable Charlotte Brontë never allows Rochester to call Jane Eyre "Janet" and "fairy" in the same breath. She permits the use of Janet, however, when the fairy notion is concealed, as when Rochester says:

"Just put your hand in mine, Janet, that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me."

Certain it is that in Charlotte Brontë's inmost heart her autobiographical self was called Janet Aire.[32]

Charlotte Brontë's conceptions, when she let her imagination have play and forgot the world of readers were, like Jane Eyre's thoughts, "elfish." See the fairy tale, _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_ (attributed by Charlotte Brontë to her pen in her fifteenth year). It has been remarked this story is not in the handwriting Charlotte Brontë affected at this period, and that the manuscript has not Charlotte's customary title-page.[33] In view of the evidence of _The Key to the Brontë Works_, it is of interest to make a comparison between _Alembert_ and Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_, published eight years later than the date Charlotte Brontë ascribed to its completion. The association of the family of Lambert with hypothetical high treason and with being extinct; with the Malham country as described by Montagu--the references, so frequent in his pages, to the awe inspired by the wildness of the scenery, to the underground torrent, the contrasting range of crags, the lake, the fairy cave, the fairy and the admittance into faerydom; to "the mellow hum of the bee," etc., are interesting in the extreme, seeing by aid of Montagu that Malham as presented by him became Gimmerton of _Wuthering Heights_. Whether "coincidence" has to do with this matter of _Alembert_ and Montagu, or Charlotte Brontë has for some reason ante-dated _Alembert_, I leave to the reader to decide.

MONTAGU. _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert._

Montagu, speaking of the church Charlotte Brontë begins by of Kirkby-Malham, "in the ... relating that there once lived vale of Malham," says:--"Some of an Ernest Alembert. One of the the Lamberts are buried Alemberts having been "beheaded" here--here is a monument to ... for "high treason,"[34] "the John Lambert, who aided Cromwell family had decayed" until the in his murder of Charles the only survivor was Ernest First (as all did who were Alembert. We are told that he implicated in Cromwell's beside a valley; and the river rebellion)[34]--after the became a lake. A stranger Restoration lived he died putting him under a spell, banished and forgotten at [A]lembert accepts him for a Guernsey. The family is now guide, and they wend their way extinct." up the valley.

In the chapter on Malham, [A]lembert finds himself at a Montagu accepts a guide who place where the torrent goes takes him up the vale of Malham. underground. He mentions Malham Lake, or Tarn, and says of the River Aire in the connection that the water "delves into the mountain, and does not appear again until it reaches the village of Airton, below Malham."

We have descriptions of wild We have descriptions of wild moor, "tremendous" precipices, moors and precipices, and and "grand and terrific foaming cataracts. When they cataracts":--"At last we stopped to rest after a climb attained the summit of the "the scene was grand and awful mountain, when, looking down in in the extreme.... The mellow the chasm beneath, horror and hum of the bee was no longer immensity were defined with heard.... Above rose tremendous thrilling truth." precipices, whose vast shadows blackened all that portion of the moor [see "Peniston Crags," page 59], and deepened the frown on the face of unpropitious nature."

Montagu and his guide go to a [A]lembert and his guide go to a cave--the cave of the Fairy cave. Farther on the guide Janet. Montagu falling asleep as vanishes, but [A]lembert wakes it were, a fairy comes to his to find him by his side as a side and tells him he is in the fairy [Charlotte Brontë, Method realm of fairies. She promises I., interchange of the sexes], to induct him into the wonders who addresses [A]lembert as of faeryland, and "the mellow follows:-- horn of the herald bee" summoned her attendants. And so on. See "I am a fairy. You have been, Charlotte Brontë's mention in and still are, in the land of _Alembert_ of "the mellow hum of fairies. Some wonders you have the bee." seen; many more you shall see if you choose to follow me." And so on in extension.

I have often wondered why no one has ever observed before that the hand which wrote _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_ must assuredly have written every line of _Wuthering Heights_. We may well understand why Charlotte Brontë in _Wuthering Heights_ wrote of Catherine Linton that "the mentioning the Fairy Cave quite turned her head" with interest. And that the original of the Fairy Cave in _Wuthering Heights_ was the Fairy Cave of Malhamdale Montagu mentions at such length in his Malham letter, the use of the names Linton and Airton in the connection irrefutably proves without other appeal: Hareton--that variant of Aire, cannot be associated with Derbyshire like "Eyre"; and despite the use of "Eyre," Aire was the name in Charlotte Brontë's mind, just as "Airton" was when she wrote "Hareton."

Both the "boy-guide" and "Gimmerton's mist" were obviously suggested to Charlotte Brontë for _Wuthering Heights_ by Montagu, the original, as I have shown, of Lockwood:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._

I ... took leave of my host and Says Heathcliffe:--"People followed the youthful steps of familiar with these moors often my guide whose services I had miss their road on such an accepted.... Upon the summit of evening." the mountain is Kilnsea Moor, over which it is impossible to "Perhaps I can get a guide among find a route to Malham Water your lads, ... could you spare without a guide, more one?" asks Lockwood of his host. particularly as a mist creates a difficulty, even to a person well acquainted with the locality.

Montagu's frequent references to the mountainous character of the Malham country were doubtless responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the word "heights" used in her title. Why the name of Gimmer, from "gimmer" a female sheep, and signifying with "ton" the place of sheep, was chosen by her for Gimmerton, is clear when we read the etymology Montagu gives of Skipton. He mentions Skibden and Skipton, proceeding to explain that "Skipton, or Sceptown (from the Saxon word 'scep,' a sheep)" meant "the town of sheep"; and Montagu tells us a native spoke of the village as "the town of Malham." Hence we perceive why Charlotte Brontë coined "Gimmerton," the village of sheep, and "Gimmerden," the valley of sheep, for Malham and Malhamdale with the source of the Aire, the Fairy Cave, the Sough, the adjacent crags, the heights, the glens, the rising mists, the Methodist chapel and kirk in the lonely vale, when in the light of all the foregoing we read in Montagu's work that:--

"Here [at Malham] there is an annual fair held on the 15th of October, appropriated entirely for the sale of sheep.[35] I am within the limit of fact when I say that upwards of one hundred thousand [sheep] have been shown at one time. [Joseph takes cattle to "Gimmerton Fair," of course not in October.] The houses are mostly built of limestone, and covered with grit slates, and irregularly situated at the base of a range of steep mountains"--"the Heights."

Malham he describes as "a small township, divided into east and west portions by a rapid stream"--"the beck down Gimmerton." "There is a Methodist chapel at Malham," he states, and says that the old church of Kirkby-Malham "is in the very bosom of the vale of Malham." Thus Gimmerton Kirk, in the lonely valley of Gimmerton,[36] was Charlotte Brontë's name in _Wuthering Heights_ for the kirk by Malham, in the lonely vale of Malham. This insight into the origin of the name of "kirk" for a Yorkshire church excuses what, without it, would have been an anachronistic misnomer. As for the Nonconformists' place of worship, Dean is made to remark:--"They call the Methodists' or Baptists' place--I can't say which it is at Gimmerton--a chapel."

In the light of the foregoing evidence it is impossible to ignore the reference Montagu makes to "the sinks," where the water from Malham Tarn sinks underground for a considerable distance. Whether Charlotte Brontë thought this would produce a quag in the neighbourhood I cannot tell; but if she has used the word "sough" (pronounced _suff_) in its ordinary acceptance in Yorkshire, she originally meant "a subterranean passage or tunnel, draining water as from a sink," if I may quote a definition in Dr. Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_. There is every sign in her writings of a loose, composite adaptation of Montagu's topography, etc., yet Charlotte Brontë was ever jealous of associations, and under a guise or not she frequently preserved carefully recognizable characteristics necessary to locality and to personality; and we see Montagu had associated a sough with Malham. We have mention of Gimmerton Sough in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_, and in Chapter X.:--"... the valley of Gimmerton, with a long list of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel ... the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour." And we have read what Montagu says about the mists of Malham.

The influence of Montagu's descriptions of this wild locality is likewise observable in the scenery and the background of _Jane Eyre_,[37] as I mentioned in the article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" I wrote in _The Saturday Review_. The yews and evergreens, mentioned by Montagu in connection with Malham, and introduced by Charlotte Brontë, with other trees of the fir-tribe, in descriptions of Morton in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. XXX., etc., and in _Wuthering Heights_, are not common to Haworth.