Popular admiration was sweet to him.
And this led to his presence being sought at "arvills" and all the great village gatherings, for the Yorkshiremen have a keen relish for intellect; and it likewise procured him the undesirable distinction of having his company recommended by the landlord of the Black Bull to any chance traveller who might happen to feel solitary or dull over his liquor.

"Do you want some one to help you with your bottle, sir?
If you do, I'll send up for Patrick" (so the villagers called him till the day of his death, though in his own family he was always "Branwell").

And while the messenger went, the landlord entertained his guest with accounts of the wonderful talents of the boy, whose precocious cleverness, and great conversational powers, were the pride of the village.

The attacks of ill health to which Mr.Bronte had been subject of late years, rendered it not only necessary that he should take his dinner alone (for the sake of avoiding temptations to unwholesome diet), but made it also desirable that he should pass the time directly succeeding his meals in perfect quiet.

And this necessity, combined with due attention to his parochial duties, made him partially ignorant how his son employed himself out of lesson-time.