The town of Keighley never quite melts into country on the road to
Haworth, although the houses become more sparse as the traveller journeys
upwards to the grey round hills that seem to bound his journey in a
westerly direction. First come some villas; just sufficiently retired
from the road to show that they can scarcely belong to any one liable to
be summoned in a hurry, at the call of suffering or danger, from his
comfortable fireside; the lawyer, the doctor, and the clergyman, live at
hand, and hardly in the suburbs, with a screen of shrubs for concealment.

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of
this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or
atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliancy and vividness
seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight
feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object, near
or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about
four miles; and, as I have said, what with villas, great worsted
factories, rows of workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned
farmhouse and out-buildings, it can hardly be called "country" any part
of the way. For two miles the road passes over tolerably level ground,
distant hills on the left, a "beck" flowing through meadows on the right,
and furnishing water power, at certain points, to the factories built on
its banks. The air is dim and lightless with the smoke from all these
habitations and places of business. The soil in the valley (or "bottom,"
to use the local term) is rich; but, as the road begins to ascend, the
vegetation becomes poorer; it does not flourish, it merely exists; and,
instead of trees, there are only bushes and shrubs about the dwellings.
Stone dykes are everywhere used in place of hedges; and what crops there
are, on the patches of arable land, consist of pale, hungry-looking, grey
green oats. Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth
village; he can see it for two miles before he arrives, for it is