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Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë · English · Gutenberg #768 · 664,881 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Brontë


        
Release date: December 1, 1996 [eBook #768]
                Most recently updated: May 6, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/768

Credits: David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WUTHERING HEIGHTS ***




Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë




CHAPTER I


1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary
neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful
country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a
situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect
misanthropist’s Heaven—and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable
pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little
imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes
withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his
fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further
in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

“Mr. Heathcliff?” I said.

A nod was the answer.

“Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling
as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have
not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation
of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts—”

“Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,” he interrupted, wincing. “I should
not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it—walk in!”

The “walk in” was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the
sentiment, “Go to the Deuce!” even the gate over which he leant
manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that
circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested
in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.

When he saw my horse’s breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put
out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the
causeway, calling, as we entered the court,—“Joseph, take Mr.
Lockwood’s horse; and bring up some wine.”

“Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,” was the
reflection suggested by this compound order. “No wonder the grass grows
up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cutters.”

Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale
and sinewy. “The Lord help us!” he soliloquised in an undertone of
peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime,
in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of
divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no
reference to my unexpected advent.

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. “Wuthering”
being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the
atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.
Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed:
one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by
the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and
by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if
craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build
it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the
corners defended with large jutting stones.

Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of
grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the
principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins
and shameless little boys, I detected the date “1500,” and the name
“Hareton Earnshaw.” I would have made a few comments, and requested a
short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at
the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure,
and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting
the penetralium.

One step brought us into the family sitting-room, without any
introductory lobby or passage: they call it here “the house”
pre-eminently. It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I
believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat
altogether into another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of
tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I
observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge
fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on
the walls. One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat
from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and
tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very
roof. The latter had never been under-drawn: its entire anatomy lay
bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with
oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it.
Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of
horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudily painted canisters
disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone; the
chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two
heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser
reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of
squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.

The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as
belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance,
and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters.
Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on
the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six
miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But
Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of
living. He is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a
gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire:
rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence,
because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.
Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred
pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of
the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to
showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He’ll
love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of
impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I’m running on too fast: I
bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have
entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he
meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope
my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should
never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself
perfectly unworthy of one.

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown
into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my
eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I “never told my love”
vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have
guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked
a return—the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I
confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every
glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was
led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her
supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of
deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which
my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by
attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and
was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and
her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long,
guttural gnarl.

“You’d better let the dog alone,” growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison,
checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. “She’s not
accustomed to be spoiled—not kept for a pet.” Then, striding to a side
door, he shouted again, “Joseph!”

Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no
intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me
_vis-à-vis_ the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs,
who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not
anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but,
imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately
indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my
physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and
leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the
table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen
four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens
to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects
of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I
could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance
from some of the household in re-establishing peace.

Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious
phlegm: I don’t think they moved one second faster than usual, though
the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an
inhabitant of the kitchen made more dispatch; a lusty dame, with
tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the
midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her
tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she
only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master
entered on the scene.

“What the devil is the matter?” he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I
could ill endure after this inhospitable treatment.

“What the devil, indeed!” I muttered. “The herd of possessed swine
could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours,
sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!”

“They won’t meddle with persons who touch nothing,” he remarked,
putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. “The
dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine?”

“No, thank you.”

“Not bitten, are you?”

“If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.” Heathcliff’s
countenance relaxed into a grin.

“Come, come,” he said, “you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a
little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my
dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your
health, sir?”

I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be
foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides,
I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since
his humour took that turn. He—probably swayed by prudential
consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant—relaxed a little
in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs,
and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,—a
discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of
retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and
before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another
visit to-morrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I
shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself
compared with him.




CHAPTER II


Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend
it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to
Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.—I dine
between twelve and one o’clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken
as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend
my request that I might be served at five)—on mounting the stairs with
this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl
on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an
infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders.
This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a
four-miles’ walk, arrived at Heathcliff’s garden-gate just in time to
escape the first feathery flakes of a snow shower.

On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the
air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the
chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered
with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till
my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.

“Wretched inmates!” I ejaculated, mentally, “you deserve perpetual
isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least,
I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I don’t care—I will
get in!” So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently.
Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the
barn.

“What are ye for?” he shouted. “T’ maister’s down i’ t’ fowld. Go round
by th’ end o’ t’ laith, if ye went to spake to him.”

“Is there nobody inside to open the door?” I hallooed, responsively.

“There’s nobbut t’ missis; and shoo’ll not oppen ’t an ye mak’ yer
flaysome dins till neeght.”

“Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?”

“Nor-ne me! I’ll hae no hend wi’t,” muttered the head, vanishing.

The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another
trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork,
appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after
marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed,
pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful
apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the
radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and
near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to
observe the “missis,” an individual whose existence I had never
previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me
take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained
motionless and mute.

“Rough weather!” I remarked. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door
must bear the consequence of your servants’ leisure attendance: I had
hard work to make them hear me.”

She never opened her mouth. I stared—she stared also: at any rate, she
kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly
embarrassing and disagreeable.

“Sit down,” said the young man, gruffly. “He’ll be in soon.”

I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this
second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of
owning my acquaintance.

“A beautiful animal!” I commenced again. “Do you intend parting with
the little ones, madam?”

“They are not mine,” said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than
Heathcliff himself could have replied.

“Ah, your favourites are among these?” I continued, turning to an
obscure cushion full of something like cats.

“A strange choice of favourites!” she observed scornfully.

Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew
closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the
evening.

“You should not have come out,” she said, rising and reaching from the
chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct
view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and
apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most
exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding;
small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging
loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in
expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my
susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between
scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected
there. The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to
aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted
to assist him in counting his gold.

“I don’t want your help,” she snapped; “I can get them for myself.”

“I beg your pardon!” I hastened to reply.

“Were you asked to tea?” she demanded, tying an apron over her neat
black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the
pot.

“I shall be glad to have a cup,” I answered.

“Were you asked?” she repeated.

“No,” I said, half smiling. “You are the proper person to ask me.”

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet;
her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a
child’s ready to cry.

Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby
upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on
me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some
mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a
servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of
the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown
curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly
over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common
labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed
none of a domestic’s assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.
In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to
abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes
afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure,
from my uncomfortable state.

“You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!” I exclaimed, assuming
the cheerful; “and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if
you can afford me shelter during that space.”

“Half an hour?” he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; “I
wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in.
Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People
familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I
can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.”

“Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the
Grange till morning—could you spare me one?”

“No, I could not.”

“Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.”

“Umph!”

“Are you going to mak’ the tea?” demanded he of the shabby coat,
shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.

“Is _he_ to have any?” she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.

“Get it ready, will you?” was the answer, uttered so savagely that I
started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad
nature. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.
When the preparations were finished, he invited me with—“Now, sir,
bring forward your chair.” And we all, including the rustic youth, drew
round the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our
meal.

I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort
to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it
was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal
scowl they wore was their every-day countenance.

“It is strange,” I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea
and receiving another—“it is strange how custom can mould our tastes
and ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life
of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff;
yet, I’ll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with
your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart—”

“My amiable lady!” he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on
his face. “Where is she—my amiable lady?”

“Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.”

“Well, yes—oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of
ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even
when her body is gone. Is that it?”

Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have
seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to
make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a
period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of
being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace
of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen.

Then it flashed upon me—“The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea
out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her
husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being
buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer
ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pity—I must beware how
I cause her to regret her choice.” The last reflection may seem
conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as bordering on
repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.

“Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,” said Heathcliff, corroborating
my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a
look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles
that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of
his soul.

“Ah, certainly—I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the
beneficent fairy,” I remarked, turning to my neighbour.

This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his
fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. But he seemed to
recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse,
muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.

“Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,” observed my host; “we neither of us
have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead. I said
she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.”

“And this young man is—”

“Not my son, assuredly.”

Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to
attribute the paternity of that bear to him.

“My name is Hareton Earnshaw,” growled the other; “and I’d counsel you
to respect it!”

“I’ve shown no disrespect,” was my reply, laughing internally at the
dignity with which he announced himself.

He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for
fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity
audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant
family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than
neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to
be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time.

The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of
sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A
sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and
hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.

“I don’t think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,” I
could not help exclaiming. “The roads will be buried already; and, if
they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.”

“Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch. They’ll be
covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them,”
said Heathcliff.

“How must I do?” I continued, with rising irritation.

There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only
Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff
leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of
matches which had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the
tea-canister to its place. The former, when he had deposited his
burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated
out—“Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i’ idleness un war,
when all on ’ems goan out! Bud yah’re a nowt, and it’s no use
talking—yah’ll niver mend o’yer ill ways, but goa raight to t’ divil,
like yer mother afore ye!”

I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to
me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an
intention of kicking him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however,
checked me by her answer.

“You scandalous old hypocrite!” she replied. “Are you not afraid of
being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil’s name? I
warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I’ll ask your abduction as a
special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph,” she continued, taking a long,
dark book from a shelf; “I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in the
Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The
red cow didn’t die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be
reckoned among providential visitations!”

“Oh, wicked, wicked!” gasped the elder; “may the Lord deliver us from
evil!”

“No, reprobate! you are a castaway—be off, or I’ll hurt you seriously!
I’ll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes
the limits I fix shall—I’ll not say what he shall be done to—but,
you’ll see! Go, I’m looking at you!”

The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and
Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and
ejaculating “wicked” as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted
by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured
to interest her in my distress.

“Mrs. Heathcliff,” I said earnestly, “you must excuse me for troubling
you. I presume, because, with that face, I’m sure you cannot help being
good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way
home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to
get to London!”

“Take the road you came,” she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair,
with a candle, and the long book open before her. “It is brief advice,
but as sound as I can give.”

“Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full
of snow, your conscience won’t whisper that it is partly your fault?”

“How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn’t let me go to the end of the
garden wall.”

“_You_! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my
convenience, on such a night,” I cried. “I want you to _tell_ me my
way, not to _show_ it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a
guide.”

“Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you
have?”

“Are there no boys at the farm?”

“No; those are all.”

“Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.”

“That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it.”

“I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on
these hills,” cried Heathcliff’s stern voice from the kitchen entrance.
“As to staying here, I don’t keep accommodations for visitors: you must
share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.”

“I can sleep on a chair in this room,” I replied.

“No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit
me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!” said
the unmannerly wretch.

With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of
disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in
my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and,
as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour
amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend
me.

“I’ll go with him as far as the park,” he said.

“You’ll go with him to hell!” exclaimed his master, or whatever
relation he bore. “And who is to look after the horses, eh?”

“A man’s life is of more consequence than one evening’s neglect of the
horses: somebody must go,” murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I
expected.

“Not at your command!” retorted Hareton. “If you set store on him,
you’d better be quiet.”

“Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will
never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,” she answered,
sharply.

“Hearken, hearken, shoo’s cursing on ’em!” muttered Joseph, towards
whom I had been steering.

He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern,
which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it
back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.

“Maister, maister, he’s staling t’ lanthern!” shouted the ancient,
pursuing my retreat. “Hey, Gnasher! Hey, dog! Hey Wolf, holld him,
holld him!”

On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat,
bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw
from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and
humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching
their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me
alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie
till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and
trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out—on their
peril to keep me one minute longer—with several incoherent threats of
retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of
King Lear.

The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the
nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don’t know
what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at
hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my
entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued
forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar. She thought that some
of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack
her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger
scoundrel.

“Well, Mr. Earnshaw,” she cried, “I wonder what you’ll have agait next?
Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones? I see this house
will never do for me—look at t’ poor lad, he’s fair choking! Wisht,
wisht; you mun’n’t go on so. Come in, and I’ll cure that: there now,
hold ye still.”

With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my
neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his
accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.

I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled
perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a
glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she
condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders,
whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.




CHAPTER III


While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the
candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about
the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there
willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had
only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on,
she could not begin to be curious.

Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced
round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a
clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top
resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked
inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch,
very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of
the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little
closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a
table.

I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them
together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff,
and every one else.

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up
in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.
This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of
characters, large and small—_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied
to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.

In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued
spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes
closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white
letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed
with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I
discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and
perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and
lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee.
It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a
fly-leaf bore the inscription—“Catherine Earnshaw, her book,” and a
date some quarter of a century back.

I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all.
Catherine’s library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it
to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose:
scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary—at least the
appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had
left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a
regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an
extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was
greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend
Joseph,—rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled
within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher
her faded hieroglyphics.

“An awful Sunday,” commenced the paragraph beneath. “I wish my father
were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to
Heathcliff is atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our
initiatory step this evening.

“All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so
Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while
Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing
anything but reading their Bibles, I’ll answer for it—Heathcliff,
myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our
prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn,
groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so
that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The
service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face
to exclaim, when he saw us descending, ‘What, done already?’ On Sunday
evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much
noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.

“‘You forget you have a master here,’ says the tyrant. ‘I’ll demolish
the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and
silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you
go by: I heard him snap his fingers.’ Frances pulled his hair heartily,
and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there they
were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish
palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our
means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our
pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes
Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork,
boxes my ears, and croaks:

“‘T’ maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o’ered, und t’ sound
o’ t’ gospel still i’ yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye!
sit ye down, ill childer! there’s good books eneugh if ye’ll read ’em:
sit ye down, and think o’ yer sowls!’

“Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might
receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the
lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my
dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I
hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there
was a hubbub!

“‘Maister Hindley!’ shouted our chaplain. ‘Maister, coom hither! Miss
Cathy’s riven th’ back off “Th’ Helmet o’ Salvation,” un’ Heathcliff’s
pawsed his fit into t’ first part o’ “T’ Brooad Way to Destruction!”
It’s fair flaysome that ye let ’em go on this gait. Ech! th’ owd man
wad ha’ laced ’em properly—but he’s goan!’

“Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of
us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the
back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, ‘owd Nick’ would fetch us as
sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate
nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a
shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got
the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is
impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman’s
cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant
suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his
prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we
are here.”

* * * * * *


I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took
up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

“How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!” she
wrote. “My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I
can’t give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and
won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he
and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the
house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared
he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to
his right place—”

* * * * * *


I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from
manuscript to print. I saw a red ornamented title—“Seventy Times Seven,
and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the
Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.” And while
I was, half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez
Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell
asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else
could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don’t remember
another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of
suffering.

I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality.
I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph
for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered
on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not
brought a pilgrim’s staff: telling me that I could never get into the
house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel,
which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it
absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own
residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we
were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the
text—“Seventy Times Seven;” and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had
committed the “First of the Seventy-First,” and were to be publicly
exposed and excommunicated.

We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or
thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow,
near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes
of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept
whole hitherto; but as the clergyman’s stipend is only twenty pounds
per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to
determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor:
especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let
him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own
pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive
congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into
_four hundred and ninety_ parts, each fully equal to an ordinary
address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he
searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of
interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin
different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious
character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.

Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and
revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and
stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he
would _ever_ have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he
reached the “_First of the Seventy-First_.” At that crisis, a sudden
inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez
Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.

“Sir,” I exclaimed, “sitting here within these four walls, at one
stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads
of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat
and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you
preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and
ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down,
and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no
more!”

“_Thou art the Man!_” cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over
his cushion. “Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy
visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is
human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the
Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written.
Such honour have all His saints!”

With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim’s
staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in
self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most
ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude,
several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces.
Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter
rappings: every man’s hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham,
unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud
taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at
last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had
suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez’s part in the
row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the
blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I
listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and
dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than
before.

This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard
distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also,
the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right
cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if
possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the
casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance
observed by me when awake, but forgotten. “I must stop it,
nevertheless!” I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and
stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of
which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!

The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my
arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,

“Let me in—let me in!”

“Who are you?” I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.

“Catherine Linton,” it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of
_Linton_? I had read _Earnshaw_ twenty times for Linton)—“I’m come
home: I’d lost my way on the moor!”

As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the
window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt
shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and
rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes:
still it wailed, “Let me in!” and maintained its tenacious gripe,
almost maddening me with fear.

“How can I!” I said at length. “Let _me_ go, if you want me to let you
in!”

The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled
the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude
the lamentable prayer.

I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the
instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!

“Begone!” I shouted. “I’ll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty
years.”

“It is twenty years,” mourned the voice: “twenty years. I’ve been a
waif for twenty years!”

Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved
as if thrust forward.

I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in
a frenzy of fright.

To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps
approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous
hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed.
I sat shuddering, yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead:
the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.

At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer,

“Is any one here?”

I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff’s
accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet.

With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon
forget the effect my action produced.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a
candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall
behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric
shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and
his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

“It is only your guest, sir,” I called out, desirous to spare him the
humiliation of exposing his cowardice further. “I had the misfortune to
scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I’m sorry I
disturbed you.”

“Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the—” commenced
my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible
to hold it steady. “And who showed you up into this room?” he
continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to
subdue the maxillary convulsions. “Who was it? I’ve a good mind to turn
them out of the house this moment!”

“It was your servant Zillah,” I replied, flinging myself on to the
floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. “I should not care if you did,
Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to
get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it
is—swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up,
I assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!”

“What do you mean?” asked Heathcliff, “and what are you doing? Lie down
and finish out the night, since you _are_ here; but, for Heaven’s sake!
don’t repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you
were having your throat cut!”

“If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have
strangled me!” I returned. “I’m not going to endure the persecutions of
your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham
akin to you on the mother’s side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or
Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a
changeling—wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the
earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal
transgressions, I’ve no doubt!”

Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of
Heathcliff’s with Catherine’s name in the book, which had completely
slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my
inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the
offence, I hastened to add—“The truth is, sir, I passed the first part
of the night in—” Here I stopped afresh—I was about to say “perusing
those old volumes,” then it would have revealed my knowledge of their
written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I
went on—“in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge. A
monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or—”

“What _can_ you mean by talking in this way to _me!_” thundered
Heathcliff with savage vehemence. “How—how _dare_ you, under my
roof?—God! he’s mad to speak so!” And he struck his forehead with rage.

I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my
explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and
proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation
of “Catherine Linton” before, but reading it often over produced an
impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination
under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the
bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I
guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he
struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show
him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather
noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the
night: “Not three o’clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six.
Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!”

“Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,” said my host, suppressing
a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm’s shadow, dashing
a tear from his eyes. “Mr. Lockwood,” he added, “you may go into my
room: you’ll only be in the way, coming downstairs so early: and your
childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.”

“And for me, too,” I replied. “I’ll walk in the yard till daylight, and
then I’ll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion.
I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or
town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”

“Delightful company!” muttered Heathcliff. “Take the candle, and go
where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard,
though, the dogs are unchained; and the house—Juno mounts sentinel
there, and—nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But,
away with you! I’ll come in two minutes!”

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the
narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a
piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly,
his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the
lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion
of tears. “Come in! come in!” he sobbed. “Cathy, do come. Oh, do—_once_
more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me _this_ time, Catherine, at last!”
The spectre showed a spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of
being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my
station, and blowing out the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this
raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off,
half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my
ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though _why_ was
beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions,
and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly
together, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except
a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a
querulous mew.

Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the
hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the
other. We were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and
then it was Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the
roof, through a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose. He cast a
sinister look at the little flame which I had enticed to play between
the ribs, swept the cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in
the vacancy, commenced the operation of stuffing a three-inch pipe with
tobacco. My presence in his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of
impudence too shameful for remark: he silently applied the tube to his
lips, folded his arms, and puffed away. I let him enjoy the luxury
unannoyed; and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving a
profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came.

A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a
“good-morning,” but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for
Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison _sotto voce_, in a series of
curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a
corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts. He glanced over
the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of
exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat. I guessed,
by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard
couch, made a movement to follow him. He noticed this, and thrust at an
inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate
sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my
locality.

It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah
urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs.
Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the
blaze. She held her hand interposed between the furnace-heat and her
eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to
chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog,
now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face. I was
surprised to see Heathcliff there also. He stood by the fire, his back
towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever
and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron,
and heave an indignant groan.

“And you, you worthless—” he broke out as I entered, turning to his
daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or
sheep, but generally represented by a dash—. “There you are, at your
idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread—you live on my
charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay
me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight—do you hear,
damnable jade?”

“I’ll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,” answered
the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. “But I’ll
not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I
please!”

Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance,
obviously acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be
entertained by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if
eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any
knowledge of the interrupted dispute. Each had enough decorum to
suspend further hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of
temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked
to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a
statue during the remainder of my stay. That was not long. I declined
joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an
opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and
cold as impalpable ice.

My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the
garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor. It was well he
did, for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells
and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the
ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges
of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my
yesterday’s walk left pictured in my mind. I had remarked on one side
of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright
stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were
erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark,
and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on
either hand with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing
up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished: and my
companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the
right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings
of the road.

We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of
Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there. Our adieux were
limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own
resources; for the porter’s lodge is untenanted as yet. The distance
from the gate to the Grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make
it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the
neck in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it
can appreciate. At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock
chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for
every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.

My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming,
tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured
that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set
about the search for my remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw
me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged upstairs;
whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or
forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study,
feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and
smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.




CHAPTER IV


What vain weather-cocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself
independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at
length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable—I,
weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits
and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under
pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my
establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit
down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip,
and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.

“You have lived here a considerable time,” I commenced; “did you not
say sixteen years?”

“Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her;
after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.”

“Indeed.”

There ensued a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her
own affairs, and those could hardly interest me. However, having
studied for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of
meditation over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated—“Ah, times are
greatly changed since then!”

“Yes,” I remarked, “you’ve seen a good many alterations, I suppose?”

“I have: and troubles too,” she said.

“Oh, I’ll turn the talk on my landlord’s family!” I thought to myself.
“A good subject to start! And that pretty girl-widow, I should like to
know her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is
more probable, an exotic that the surly _indigenae_ will not recognise
for kin.” With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let
Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence
so much inferior. “Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good
order?” I inquired.

“Rich, sir!” she returned. “He has nobody knows what money, and every
year it increases. Yes, yes, he’s rich enough to live in a finer house
than this: but he’s very near—close-handed; and, if he had meant to
flit to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he
could not have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more.
It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the
world!”

“He had a son, it seems?”

“Yes, he had one—he is dead.”

“And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?”

“Yes.”

“Where did she come from originally?”

“Why, sir, she is my late master’s daughter: Catherine Linton was her
maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would
remove here, and then we might have been together again.”

“What! Catherine Linton?” I exclaimed, astonished. But a minute’s
reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine. “Then,” I
continued, “my predecessor’s name was Linton?”

“It was.”

“And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr.
Heathcliff? Are they relations?”

“No; he is the late Mrs. Linton’s nephew.”

“The young lady’s cousin, then?”

“Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother’s, the
other on the father’s side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister.”

“I see the house at Wuthering Heights has ‘Earnshaw’ carved over the
front door. Are they an old family?”

“Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is
of us—I mean, of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg
pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!”

“Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I
think, not very happy.”

“Oh dear, I don’t wonder! And how did you like the master?”

“A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean. Is not that his character?”

“Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with
him the better.”

“He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.
Do you know anything of his history?”

“It’s a cuckoo’s, sir—I know all about it: except where he was born,
and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first. And
Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock! The unfortunate
lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has
been cheated.”

“Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of
my neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good
enough to sit and chat an hour.”

“Oh, certainly, sir! I’ll just fetch a little sewing, and then I’ll sit
as long as you please. But you’ve caught cold: I saw you shivering, and
you must have some gruel to drive it out.”

The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head
felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to
a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to
feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious
effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday. She returned
presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having
placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to
find me so companionable.

* * * * *


Before I came to live here, she commenced—waiting no farther invitation
to her story—I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my
mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton’s father, and
I got used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped
to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody
would set me to. One fine summer morning—it was the beginning of
harvest, I remember—Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came downstairs,
dressed for a journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be
done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me—for I sat
eating my porridge with them—and he said, speaking to his son, “Now, my
bonny man, I’m going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you? You
may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there
and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!” Hindley named a
fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but
she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did
not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe
sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and
then he kissed his children, said good-bye, and set off.

It seemed a long while to us all—the three days of his absence—and
often did little Cathy ask when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw
expected him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal
off hour after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at
last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then
it grew dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to
be allowed to stay up; and, just about eleven o’clock, the door-latch
was raised quietly, and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a
chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was
nearly killed—he would not have such another walk for the three
kingdoms.

“And at the end of it to be flighted to death!” he said, opening his
great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms. “See here, wife! I
was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e’en take it
as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the
devil.”

We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty,
ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed,
its face looked older than Catherine’s; yet when it was set on its
feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some
gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs.
Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how
he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had
their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and
whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was
really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst
her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and
as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and
inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said;
and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take
it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he
was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the
conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr.
Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep
with the children.

Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till
peace was restored: then, both began searching their father’s pockets
for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of
fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to
morsels in the great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she
learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger,
showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing;
earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her
cleaner manners. They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or
even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing
of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or
else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw’s door,
and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as
to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my
cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house.

This was Heathcliff’s first introduction to the family. On coming back
a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual),
I found they had christened him “Heathcliff”: it was the name of a son
who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for
Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but
Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued
and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn’t reasonable enough to feel
my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when
she saw him wronged.

He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment:
he would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and
my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if
he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. This
endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son
persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him. He took to
Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said
precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above
Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at
Mrs. Earnshaw’s death, which happened in less than two years after, the
young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather
than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent’s affections
and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these
injuries. I sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the
measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at
once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he
lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose
he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn’t wit to guess that I
was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest
child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the
others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me
terribly: _he_ was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not
gentleness, made him give little trouble.

He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing
to me, and praised me for my care. I was vain of his commendations, and
softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus
Hindley lost his last ally: still I couldn’t dote on Heathcliff, and I
wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy;
who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of
gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply
insensible; though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and
conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to
bend to his wishes. As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought
a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one.
Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it soon fell lame, and when he
discovered it, he said to Hindley—

“You must exchange horses with me: I don’t like mine; and if you won’t
I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you’ve given me this
week, and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.” Hindley put
out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. “You’d better do it at
once,” he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable):
“you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you’ll get them again
with interest.” “Off, dog!” cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron
weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. “Throw it,” he replied,
standing still, “and then I’ll tell how you boasted that you would turn
me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn
you out directly.” Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and
down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and,
had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and
got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who
had caused it. “Take my colt, Gipsy, then!” said young Earnshaw. “And I
pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly
interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards
show him what you are, imp of Satan.—And take that, I hope he’ll kick
out your brains!”

Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall;
he was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking
him under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes
were fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could. I was surprised to
witness how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his
intention; exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a
bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned,
before he entered the house. I persuaded him easily to let me lay the
blame of his bruises on the horse: he minded little what tale was told
since he had what he wanted. He complained so seldom, indeed, of such
stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was
deceived completely, as you will hear.




CHAPTER V


In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active
and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was
confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing
vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into
fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose
upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a
word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head
the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to
do him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder
among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his
partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child’s
pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice,
or thrice, Hindley’s manifestation of scorn, while his father was near,
roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and
shook with rage that he could not do it.

At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by
teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land
himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr.
Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—“Hindley was
nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.”

I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the
master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the
discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as
he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his
sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for
two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay,
up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest
self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the
promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his
knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a
great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master
became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him
about his soul’s concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He
encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after
night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against
Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw’s weakness
by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.

Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up
before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener
in a day: from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to
bed, we had not a minute’s security that she wouldn’t be in mischief.
Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always
going—singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the
same. A wild, wicked slip she was—but she had the bonniest eye, the
sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I
believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good
earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and
oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her. She was much too
fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was
to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us
on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little
mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she
did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let
her know.

Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had
always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had
no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we
were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy
look, and her ready words; turning Joseph’s religious curses into
ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most—showing
how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over
Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in
anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination. After
behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to
make it up at night. “Nay, Cathy,” the old man would say, “I cannot
love thee, thou’rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child,
and ask God’s pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever
reared thee!” That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed
continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was
sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw’s troubles on
earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were
all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting,
and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally
sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been
sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father’s knee, and
Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember
the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair—it
pleased him rarely to see her gentle—and saying, “Why canst thou not
always be a good lass, Cathy?” And she turned her face up to his, and
laughed, and answered, “Why cannot you always be a good man, father?”
But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said
she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his
fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told
her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as
mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only
Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse
the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by
name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the
candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set
down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them
to “frame upstairs, and make little din—they might pray alone that
evening—he had summut to do.”

“I shall bid father good-night first,” said Catherine, putting her arms
round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered
her loss directly—she screamed out—“Oh, he’s dead, Heathcliff! he’s
dead!” And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we
could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He
told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the
parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then.
However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor,
back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving
Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children’s room: their door was
ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but
they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls
were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit
on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they
did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could
not help wishing we were all there safe together.




CHAPTER VI


Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and—a thing that amazed us, and
set the neighbours gossiping right and left—he brought a wife with him.
What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably,
she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely
have kept the union from his father.

She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own
account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold,
appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about
her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the
mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that
went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I
should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and
clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly—“Are they gone yet?” Then she
began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her
to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell
a-weeping—and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn’t
know; but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely
to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and
fresh-complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did
remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very
quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that
she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these
symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don’t
in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to
us first.

Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his
absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and
dressed quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told
Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the
back-kitchen, and leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have
carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour; but his wife
expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace,
at the pewter dishes and delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space
there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it
unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention.

She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new
acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran
about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning.
Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish,
Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to
Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy.
He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the
instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of
doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the
farm.

Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy
taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the
fields. They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the
young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they
did, so they kept clear of him. He would not even have seen after their
going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his
carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to
order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or
supper. But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the
moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment
grew a mere thing to laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as
he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash
Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they
were together again: at least the minute they had contrived some
naughty plan of revenge; and many a time I’ve cried to myself to watch
them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable,
for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended
creatures. One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from
the sitting-room, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind;
and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere.
We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they
were invisible: and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the
doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night. The household
went to bed; and I, too anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put
my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in
spite of the prohibition, should they return. In a while, I
distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern
glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to
prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was
Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone.

“Where is Miss Catherine?” I cried hurriedly. “No accident, I hope?”
“At Thrushcross Grange,” he answered; “and I would have been there too,
but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.” “Well, you will catch
it!” I said: “you’ll never be content till you’re sent about your
business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?”
“Let me get off my wet clothes, and I’ll tell you all about it, Nelly,”
he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he
undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued—“Cathy and I
escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a
glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see
whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in
corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and
singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do
you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their
man-servant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they
don’t answer properly?” “Probably not,” I responded. “They are good
children, no doubt, and don’t deserve the treatment you receive, for
your bad conduct.” “Don’t cant, Nelly,” he said: “nonsense! We ran from
the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping—Catherine
completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You’ll have to
seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We crept through a broken
hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a
flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came from thence;
they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half
closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement,
and clinging to the ledge, and we saw—ah! it was beautiful—a splendid
place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and
a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging
in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft
tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sister
had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn’t they have been happy? We
should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your good
children were doing? Isabella—I believe she is eleven, a year younger
than Cathy—lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as
if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the
hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little
dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual accusations,
we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots!
That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm
hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it,
refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we did
despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine
wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and
sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I’d not
exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton’s
at Thrushcross Grange—not if I might have the privilege of flinging
Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with
Hindley’s blood!”

“Hush, hush!” I interrupted. “Still you have not told me, Heathcliff,
how Catherine is left behind?”

“I told you we laughed,” he answered. “The Lintons heard us, and with
one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and
then a cry, ‘Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh,
papa, oh!’ They really did howl out something in that way. We made
frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off
the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had
better flee. I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all
at once she fell down. ‘Run, Heathcliff, run!’ she whispered. ‘They
have let the bull-dog loose, and he holds me!’ The devil had seized her
ankle, Nelly: I heard his abominable snorting. She did not yell out—no!
she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns
of a mad cow. I did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate
any fiend in Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his
jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast
of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting—‘Keep fast,
Skulker, keep fast!’ He changed his note, however, when he saw
Skulker’s game. The dog was throttled off; his huge, purple tongue
hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming
with bloody slaver. The man took Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear,
I’m certain, but from pain. He carried her in; I followed, grumbling
execrations and vengeance. ‘What prey, Robert?’ hallooed Linton from
the entrance. ‘Skulker has caught a little girl, sir,’ he replied; ‘and
there’s a lad here,’ he added, making a clutch at me, ‘who looks an
out-and-outer! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the
window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they
might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed
thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir,
don’t lay by your gun.’ ‘No, no, Robert,’ said the old fool. ‘The
rascals knew that yesterday was my rent-day: they thought to have me
cleverly. Come in; I’ll furnish them a reception. There, John, fasten
the chain. Give Skulker some water, Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his
stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop?
Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the
villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to
the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as
well as features?’ He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton
placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror. The
cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping—‘Frightful thing!
Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the
fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn’t he, Edgar?’

“While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech,
and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected
sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know,
though we seldom meet them elsewhere. ‘That’s Miss Earnshaw!’ he
whispered to his mother, ‘and look how Skulker has bitten her—how her
foot bleeds!’

“‘Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!’ cried the dame; ‘Miss Earnshaw scouring the
country with a gipsy! And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning—surely
it is—and she may be lamed for life!’

“‘What culpable carelessness in her brother!’ exclaimed Mr. Linton,
turning from me to Catherine. ‘I’ve understood from Shielders’” (that
was the curate, sir) “‘that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism.
But who is this? Where did she pick up this companion? Oho! I declare
he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey
to Liverpool—a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.’

“‘A wicked boy, at all events,’ remarked the old lady, ‘and quite unfit
for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton? I’m shocked
that my children should have heard it.’

“I recommenced cursing—don’t be angry, Nelly—and so Robert was ordered
to take me off. I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the
garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw
should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly,
secured the door again. The curtains were still looped up at one
corner, and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had
wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a
million of fragments, unless they let her out. She sat on the sofa
quietly. Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we
had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with
her, I suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction
between her treatment and mine. Then the woman-servant brought a basin
of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of
negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar
stood gaping at a distance. Afterwards, they dried and combed her
beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled
her to the fire; and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her
food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he
ate; and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the
Lintons—a dim reflection from her own enchanting face. I saw they were
full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them—to
everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?”

“There will more come of this business than you reckon on,” I answered,
covering him up and extinguishing the light. “You are incurable,
Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if
he won’t.” My words came truer than I desired. The luckless adventure
made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a
visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture
on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about
him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that
the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal;
and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint
when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would
have found it impossible.




CHAPTER VII


Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas. By that
time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The
mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of
reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and
flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless
little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all
breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified
person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered
beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with
both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her from her horse,
exclaiming delightedly, “Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should
scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now. Isabella Linton is
not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?” “Isabella has not her
natural advantages,” replied his wife: “but she must mind and not grow
wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things—Stay,
dear, you will disarrange your curls—let me untie your hat.”

I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk
frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes
sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she
dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid
garments. She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas
cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked
round for Heathcliff. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their
meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what
grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends.

Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and
uncared for, before Catherine’s absence, he had been ten times more so
since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy,
and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom
have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention
his clothes, which had seen three months’ service in mire and dust, and
his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally
beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a
bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed
counterpart of himself, as he expected. “Is Heathcliff not here?” she
demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully
whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.

“Heathcliff, you may come forward,” cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his
discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard
he would be compelled to present himself. “You may come and wish Miss
Catherine welcome, like the other servants.”

Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to
embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the
second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh,
exclaiming, “Why, how very black and cross you look! and how—how funny
and grim! But that’s because I’m used to Edgar and Isabella Linton.
Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?”

She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw
double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.

“Shake hands, Heathcliff,” said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; “once in
a way, that is permitted.”

“I shall not,” replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; “I shall
not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it!”

And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him
again.

“I did not mean to laugh at you,” she said; “I could not hinder myself:
Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only
that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will
be all right: but you are so dirty!”

She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and
also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from
its contact with his.

“You needn’t have touched me!” he answered, following her eye and
snatching away his hand. “I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like
to be dirty, and I will be dirty.”

With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of
the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine;
who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an
exhibition of bad temper.

After playing lady’s-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the
oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires,
befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by
singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph’s affirmations that he
considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs. He had
retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw
were engaging Missy’s attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to
present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness.
They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the
invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that
her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that “naughty swearing
boy.”

Under these circumstances I remained solitary. I smelt the rich scent
of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the
polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready
to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless
purity of my particular care—the scoured and well-swept floor. I gave
due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old
Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass,
and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I
went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he
should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally
led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and from singing I
changed my mind to crying. It struck me soon, however, there would be
more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding
tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him. He was
not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the
stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom.

“Make haste, Heathcliff!” I said, “the kitchen is so comfortable; and
Joseph is upstairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss
Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth
to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.”

He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me.

“Come—are you coming?” I continued. “There’s a little cake for each of
you, nearly enough; and you’ll need half-an-hour’s donning.”

I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him. Catherine supped
with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an
unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on
the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the
fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o’clock, and then
marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world
of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into
the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only
stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the
morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour
on to the moors; not re-appearing till the family were departed for
church. Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better
spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his
courage, exclaimed abruptly—“Nelly, make me decent, I’m going to be
good.”

“High time, Heathcliff,” I said; “you _have_ grieved Catherine: she’s
sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her,
because she is more thought of than you.”

The notion of _envying_ Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the
notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.

“Did she say she was grieved?” he inquired, looking very serious.

“She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.”

“Well, _I_ cried last night,” he returned, “and I had more reason to
cry than she.”

“Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an
empty stomach,” said I. “Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.
But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind,
when she comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say—you
know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought
her converted into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I
have dinner to get ready, I’ll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar
Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does. You are
younger, and yet, I’ll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad
across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don’t
you feel that you could?”

Heathcliff’s face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and
he sighed.

“But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him
less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin,
and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich
as he will be!”

“And cried for mamma at every turn,” I added, “and trembled if a
country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a
shower of rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to
the glass, and I’ll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those
two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of
rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so
deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting
under them, like devil’s spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly
wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to
confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always
seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. Don’t get the
expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are
its desert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for
what it suffers.”

“In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton’s great blue eyes and
even forehead,” he replied. “I do—and that won’t help me to them.”

“A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,” I continued, “if
you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into
something worse than ugly. And now that we’ve done washing, and
combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don’t think yourself rather
handsome? I’ll tell you, I do. You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who
knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian
queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering
Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by
wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would
frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should
give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little
farmer!”

So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to
look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted
by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court. He ran
to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons
descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the
Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in
winter. Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them
into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour
into their white faces.

I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he
willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the
door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the
other. They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and
cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved
him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph “keep the fellow
out of the room—send him into the garret till dinner is over. He’ll be
cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone
with them a minute.”

“Nay, sir,” I could not avoid answering, “he’ll touch nothing, not he:
and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.”

“He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till
dark,” cried Hindley. “Begone, you vagabond! What! you are attempting
the coxcomb, are you? Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks—see
if I won’t pull them a bit longer!”

“They are long enough already,” observed Master Linton, peeping from
the doorway; “I wonder they don’t make his head ache. It’s like a
colt’s mane over his eyes!”

He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but
Heathcliff’s violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance
of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival.
He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce, the first thing that came under
his gripe, and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck; who
instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine
hurrying to the place. Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly
and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a
rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and
breathless. I got the dish-cloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed
Edgar’s nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling. His
sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded,
blushing for all.

“You should not have spoken to him!” she expostulated with Master
Linton. “He was in a bad temper, and now you’ve spoilt your visit; and
he’ll be flogged: I hate him to be flogged! I can’t eat my dinner. Why
did you speak to him, Edgar?”

“I didn’t,” sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the
remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket-handkerchief. “I
promised mamma that I wouldn’t say one word to him, and I didn’t.”

“Well, don’t cry,” replied Catherine, contemptuously; “you’re not
killed. Don’t make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet! Hush,
Isabella! Has anybody hurt _you?_”

“There, there, children—to your seats!” cried Hindley, bustling in.
“That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar,
take the law into your own fists—it will give you an appetite!”

The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant
feast. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no
real harm had befallen them. Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls,
and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her
chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an
indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her.
“An unfeeling child,” I thought to myself; “how lightly she dismisses
her old playmate’s troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so
selfish.” She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down
again: her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them. She slipped
her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her
emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in
purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of
getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been
locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce
to him a private mess of victuals.

In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated
then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and
I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in
the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the
arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a
trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides
singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive
contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to
hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs
and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.

Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of
the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house
door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She
made no stay at the stairs’-head, but mounted farther, to the garret
where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined
answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to
hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things
converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and
the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to
warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The
little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof,
into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I
could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her,
and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my
fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour’s, to be removed from the sound
of our “devil’s psalmody,” as it pleased him to call it. I told them I
intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had
never broken his fast since yesterday’s dinner, I would wink at his
cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the
fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and
could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He
leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and
remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his
thoughts, he answered gravely—“I’m trying to settle how I shall pay
Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at
last. I hope he will not die before I do!”

“For shame, Heathcliff!” said I. “It is for God to punish wicked
people; we should learn to forgive.”

“No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,” he returned. “I
only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out:
while I’m thinking of that I don’t feel pain.”

But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I’m annoyed
how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel
cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff’s history,
all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.

* * * * *


Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay
aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I
was very far from nodding. “Sit still, Mrs. Dean,” I cried; “do sit
still another half-hour. You’ve done just right to tell the story
leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the
same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more
or less.”

“The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.”

“No matter—I’m not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or
two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.”

“You shouldn’t lie till ten. There’s the very prime of the morning gone
long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day’s
work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”

“Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend
lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an
obstinate cold, at least.”

“I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three
years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw—”

“No, no, I’ll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the
mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking
its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so
intently that puss’s neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of
temper?”

“A terribly lazy mood, I should say.”

“On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and,
therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions
acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does
over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the
deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the
looker-on. They _do_ live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less
in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love
for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love
of a year’s standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to
a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do
it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French
cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but
each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.”

“Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,”
observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.

“Excuse me,” I responded; “you, my good friend, are a striking evidence
against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight
consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to
consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great
deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been
compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions
for frittering your life away in silly trifles.”

Mrs. Dean laughed.

“I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,” she
said; “not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of
faces, and one series of actions, from year’s end to year’s end; but I
have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then,
I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open
a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something
out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of
French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can
expect of a poor man’s daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in
true gossip’s fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three
years, I will be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778,
that is nearly twenty-three years ago.”




CHAPTER VIII


On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and
the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the
hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our
breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the
lane, calling me as she ran.

“Oh, such a grand bairn!” she panted out. “The finest lad that ever
breathed! But the doctor says missis must go: he says she’s been in a
consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now
she has nothing to keep her, and she’ll be dead before winter. You must
come home directly. You’re to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar
and milk, and take care of it day and night. I wish I were you, because
it will be all yours when there is no missis!”

“But is she very ill?” I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my
bonnet.

“I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,” replied the girl, “and she
talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She’s out of
her head for joy, it’s such a beauty! If I were her I’m certain I
should not die: I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite
of Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Dame Archer brought the cherub
down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when
the old croaker steps forward, and says he—‘Earnshaw, it’s a blessing
your wife has been spared to leave you this son. When she came, I felt
convinced we shouldn’t keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the
winter will probably finish her. Don’t take on, and fret about it too
much: it can’t be helped. And besides, you should have known better
than to choose such a rush of a lass!’”

“And what did the master answer?” I inquired.

“I think he swore: but I didn’t mind him, I was straining to see the
bairn,” and she began again to describe it rapturously. I, as zealous
as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was
very sad for Hindley’s sake. He had room in his heart only for two
idols—his wife and himself: he doted on both, and adored one, and I
couldn’t conceive how he would bear the loss.

When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door;
and, as I passed in, I asked, “how was the baby?”

“Nearly ready to run about, Nell!” he replied, putting on a cheerful
smile.

“And the mistress?” I ventured to inquire; “the doctor says she’s—”

“Damn the doctor!” he interrupted, reddening. “Frances is quite right:
she’ll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going
upstairs? will you tell her that I’ll come, if she’ll promise not to
talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she
must—tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.”

I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty
spirits, and replied merrily, “I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there
he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won’t speak: but
that does not bind me not to laugh at him!”

Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed
her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming
her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his
medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn’t put
him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, “I know you need
not—she’s well—she does not want any more attendance from you! She
never was in a consumption. It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse
is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool.”

He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one
night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought
she should be able to get up to-morrow, a fit of coughing took her—a
very slight one—he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about
his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.

As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my
hands. Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him
cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew
desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither
wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave
himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his
tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that
would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you
know, I had been his foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more
readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants
and labourers; and because it was his vocation to be where he had
plenty of wickedness to reprove.

The master’s bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for
Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to
make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad _were_
possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to
witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily
more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell
what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody
decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton’s visits to Miss
Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the
country-side; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty,
headstrong creature! I own I did not like her, after infancy was past;
and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance: she
never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to
old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections
unalterably; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it
difficult to make an equally deep impression. He was my late master:
that is his portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side,
and his wife’s on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you
might see something of what she was. Can you make that out?

Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face,
exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive
and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light
hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious;
the figure almost too graceful. I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw
could forget her first friend for such an individual. I marvelled much
how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea
of Catherine Earnshaw.

“A very agreeable portrait,” I observed to the house-keeper. “Is it
like?”

“Yes,” she answered; “but he looked better when he was animated; that
is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.”

Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her
five-weeks’ residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show
her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of
being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed
unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality;
gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her
brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first—for she was
full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without
exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard
Heathcliff termed a “vulgar young ruffian,” and “worse than a brute,”
she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small
inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and
restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor
praise.

Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He
had a terror of Earnshaw’s reputation, and shrunk from encountering
him; and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility:
the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if
he could not be gracious, kept out of the way. I rather think his
appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful,
never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two
friends meeting at all; for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of
Linton in his presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his
absence; and when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff,
she dared not treat his sentiments with indifference, as if
depreciation of her playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her.
I’ve had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which
she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds ill-natured: but
she was so proud, it became really impossible to pity her distresses,
till she should be chastened into more humility. She did bring herself,
finally, to confess, and to confide in me: there was not a soul else
that she might fashion into an adviser.

Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed
to give himself a holiday on the strength of it. He had reached the age
of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being
deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward
and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of.
In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early
education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had
extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge,
and any love for books or learning. His childhood’s sense of
superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was
faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in
her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he
yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step
in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink
beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with
mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look;
his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost
idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure,
apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few
acquaintance.

Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of
respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her
in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses,
as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks
of affection on him. On the before-named occasion he came into the
house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting
Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it
into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place
to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her
brother’s absence, and was then preparing to receive him.

“Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?” asked Heathcliff. “Are you going
anywhere?”

“No, it is raining,” she answered.

“Why have you that silk frock on, then?” he said. “Nobody coming here,
I hope?”

“Not that I know of,” stammered Miss: “but you should be in the field
now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinner time; I thought you were
gone.”

“Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,” observed
the boy. “I’ll not work any more to-day: I’ll stay with you.”

“Oh, but Joseph will tell,” she suggested; “you’d better go!”

“Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will
take him till dark, and he’ll never know.”

So saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down. Catherine reflected
an instant, with knitted brows—she found it needful to smooth the way
for an intrusion. “Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this
afternoon,” she said, at the conclusion of a minute’s silence. “As it
rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run
the risk of being scolded for no good.”

“Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,” he persisted; “don’t turn
me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I’m on the point,
sometimes, of complaining that they—but I’ll not—”

“That they what?” cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled
countenance. “Oh, Nelly!” she added petulantly, jerking her head away
from my hands, “you’ve combed my hair quite out of curl! That’s enough;
let me alone. What are you on the point of complaining about,
Heathcliff?”

“Nothing—only look at the almanack on that wall;” he pointed to a
framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued, “The crosses are
for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those
spent with me. Do you see? I’ve marked every day.”

“Yes—very foolish: as if I took notice!” replied Catherine, in a
peevish tone. “And where is the sense of that?”

“To show that I _do_ take notice,” said Heathcliff.

“And should I always be sitting with you?” she demanded, growing more
irritated. “What good do I get? What do you talk about? You might be
dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you
do, either!”

“You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you
disliked my company, Cathy!” exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation.

“It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,” she
muttered.

Her companion rose up, but he hadn’t time to express his feelings
further, for a horse’s feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked
gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the
unexpected summons he had received. Doubtless Catherine marked the
difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out.
The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal
country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were
as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and
pronounced his words as you do: that’s less gruff than we talk here,
and softer.

“I’m not come too soon, am I?” he said, casting a look at me: I had
begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the
dresser.

“No,” answered Catherine. “What are you doing there, Nelly?”

“My work, Miss,” I replied. (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to
make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.)

She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, “Take yourself and your
dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don’t commence
scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!”

“It’s a good opportunity, now that master is away,” I answered aloud:
“he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I’m
sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me.”

“I hate you to be fidgeting in _my_ presence,” exclaimed the young lady
imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to
recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.

“I’m sorry for it, Miss Catherine,” was my response; and I proceeded
assiduously with my occupation.

She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my
hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the
arm. I’ve said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her
vanity now and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up
from my knees, and screamed out, “Oh, Miss, that’s a nasty trick! You
have no right to nip me, and I’m not going to bear it.”

“I didn’t touch you, you lying creature!” cried she, her fingers
tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never had
power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a
blaze.

“What’s that, then?” I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to
refute her.

She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled
by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging
blow that filled both eyes with water.

“Catherine, love! Catherine!” interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the
double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed.

“Leave the room, Ellen!” she repeated, trembling all over.

Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on
the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out
complaints against “wicked aunt Cathy,” which drew her fury on to his
unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor
child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to
deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young
man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be
mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in
my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of
communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle
their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had
laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip.

“That’s right!” I said to myself. “Take warning and begone! It’s a
kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition.”

“Where are you going?” demanded Catherine, advancing to the door.

He swerved aside, and attempted to pass.

“You must not go!” she exclaimed, energetically.

“I must and shall!” he replied in a subdued voice.

“No,” she persisted, grasping the handle; “not yet, Edgar Linton: sit
down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all
night, and I won’t be miserable for you!”

“Can I stay after you have struck me?” asked Linton.

Catherine was mute.

“You’ve made me afraid and ashamed of you,” he continued; “I’ll not
come here again!”

Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle.

“And you told a deliberate untruth!” he said.

“I didn’t!” she cried, recovering her speech; “I did nothing
deliberately. Well, go, if you please—get away! And now I’ll cry—I’ll
cry myself sick!”

She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious
earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there
he lingered. I resolved to encourage him.

“Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,” I called out. “As bad as any marred
child: you’d better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to
grieve us.”

The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the
power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse
half killed, or a bird half eaten. Ah, I thought, there will be no
saving him: he’s doomed, and flies to his fate! And so it was: he
turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind
him; and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had
come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears
(his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had
merely effected a closer intimacy—had broken the outworks of youthful
timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and
confess themselves lovers.

Intelligence of Mr. Hindley’s arrival drove Linton speedily to his
horse, and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and
to take the shot out of the master’s fowling-piece, which he was fond
of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of
any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit
upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did
go the length of firing the gun.




CHAPTER IX


He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the
act of stowing his son away in the kitchen cupboard. Hareton was
impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild
beast’s fondness or his madman’s rage; for in one he ran a chance of
being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being flung
into the fire, or dashed against the wall; and the poor thing remained
perfectly quiet wherever I chose to put him.

“There, I’ve found it out at last!” cried Hindley, pulling me back by
the skin of my neck, like a dog. “By heaven and hell, you’ve sworn
between you to murder that child! I know how it is, now, that he is
always out of my way. But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you
swallow the carving-knife, Nelly! You needn’t laugh; for I’ve just
crammed Kenneth, head-downmost, in the Black-horse marsh; and two is
the same as one—and I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest
till I do!”

“But I don’t like the carving-knife, Mr. Hindley,” I answered; “it has
been cutting red herrings. I’d rather be shot, if you please.”

“You’d rather be damned!” he said; “and so you shall. No law in England
can hinder a man from keeping his house decent, and mine’s abominable!
Open your mouth.”

He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point between my teeth:
but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his vagaries. I spat out,
and affirmed it tasted detestably—I would not take it on any account.

“Oh!” said he, releasing me, “I see that hideous little villain is not
Hareton: I beg your pardon, Nell. If it be, he deserves flaying alive
for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin.
Unnatural cub, come hither! I’ll teach thee to impose on a
good-hearted, deluded father. Now, don’t you think the lad would be
handsomer cropped? It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something
fierce—get me a scissors—something fierce and trim! Besides, it’s
infernal affectation—devilish conceit it is, to cherish our ears—we’re
asses enough without them. Hush, child, hush! Well then, it is my
darling! wisht, dry thy eyes—there’s a joy; kiss me. What! it won’t?
Kiss me, Hareton! Damn thee, kiss me! By God, as if I would rear such a
monster! As sure as I’m living, I’ll break the brat’s neck.”

Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father’s arms with all
his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him upstairs and
lifted him over the banister. I cried out that he would frighten the
child into fits, and ran to rescue him. As I reached them, Hindley
leant forward on the rails to listen to a noise below; almost
forgetting what he had in his hands. “Who is that?” he asked, hearing
some one approaching the stairs’-foot. I leant forward also, for the
purpose of signing to Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come
further; and, at the instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a
sudden spring, delivered himself from the careless grasp that held him,
and fell.

There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw
that the little wretch was safe. Heathcliff arrived underneath just at
the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and
setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the
accident. A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five
shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand
pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding
the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above. It expressed, plainer than words
could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument
of thwarting his own revenge. Had it been dark, I daresay he would have
tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton’s skull on the steps;
but, we witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my
precious charge pressed to my heart. Hindley descended more leisurely,
sobered and abashed.

“It is your fault, Ellen,” he said; “you should have kept him out of
sight: you should have taken him from me! Is he injured anywhere?”

“Injured!” I cried angrily; “if he is not killed, he’ll be an idiot!
Oh! I wonder his mother does not rise from her grave to see how you use
him. You’re worse than a heathen—treating your own flesh and blood in
that manner!”

He attempted to touch the child, who, on finding himself with me,
sobbed off his terror directly. At the first finger his father laid on
him, however, he shrieked again louder than before, and struggled as if
he would go into convulsions.

“You shall not meddle with him!” I continued. “He hates you—they all
hate you—that’s the truth! A happy family you have; and a pretty state
you’re come to!”

“I shall come to a prettier, yet, Nelly,” laughed the misguided man,
recovering his hardness. “At present, convey yourself and him away. And
hark you, Heathcliff! clear you too quite from my reach and hearing. I
wouldn’t murder you to-night; unless, perhaps, I set the house on fire:
but that’s as my fancy goes.”

While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and
poured some into a tumbler.

“Nay, don’t!” I entreated. “Mr. Hindley, do take warning. Have mercy on
this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself!”

“Any one will do better for him than I shall,” he answered.

“Have mercy on your own soul!” I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass
from his hand.

“Not I! On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to
perdition to punish its Maker,” exclaimed the blasphemer. “Here’s to
its hearty damnation!”

He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go; terminating his
command with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or
remember.

“It’s a pity he cannot kill himself with drink,” observed Heathcliff,
muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut. “He’s doing
his very utmost; but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he
would wager his mare that he’ll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton,
and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the
common course befall him.”

I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep.
Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn. It turned out
afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when
he flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire, and
remained silent.

I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began,—

It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat,
The mither beneath the mools heard that,


when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her
head in, and whispered,—“Are you alone, Nelly?”

“Yes, Miss,” I replied.

She entered and approached the hearth. I, supposing she was going to
say something, looked up. The expression of her face seemed disturbed
and anxious. Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and
she drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence. I
resumed my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.

“Where’s Heathcliff?” she said, interrupting me.

“About his work in the stable,” was my answer.

He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze. There
followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two
trickle from Catherine’s cheek to the flags. Is she sorry for her
shameful conduct?—I asked myself. That will be a novelty: but she may
come to the point as she will—I sha’n’t help her! No, she felt small
trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.

“Oh, dear!” she cried at last. “I’m very unhappy!”

“A pity,” observed I. “You’re hard to please; so many friends and so
few cares, and can’t make yourself content!”

“Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?” she pursued, kneeling down by
me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look
which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the
world to indulge it.

“Is it worth keeping?” I inquired, less sulkily.

“Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I
should do. To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I’ve
given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or
denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.”

“Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?” I replied. “To be sure,
considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this
afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked
you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome
fool.”

“If you talk so, I won’t tell you any more,” she returned, peevishly
rising to her feet. “I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I
was wrong!”

“You accepted him! Then what good is it discussing the matter? You have
pledged your word, and cannot retract.”

“But say whether I should have done so—do!” she exclaimed in an
irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.

“There are many things to be considered before that question can be
answered properly,” I said, sententiously. “First and foremost, do you
love Mr. Edgar?”

“Who can help it? Of course I do,” she answered.

Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of
twenty-two it was not injudicious.

“Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?”

“Nonsense, I do—that’s sufficient.”

“By no means; you must say why?”

“Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.”

“Bad!” was my commentary.

“And because he is young and cheerful.”

“Bad, still.”

“And because he loves me.”

“Indifferent, coming there.”

“And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the
neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.”

“Worst of all. And now, say how you love him?”

“As everybody loves—You’re silly, Nelly.”

“Not at all—Answer.”

“I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and
everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks,
and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!”

“And why?”

“Nay; you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill-natured! It’s
no jest to me!” said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to
the fire.

“I’m very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,” I replied. “You love Mr.
Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and
loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him
without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed
the four former attractions.”

“No, to be sure not: I should only pity him—hate him, perhaps, if he
were ugly, and a clown.”

“But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world:
handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from
loving them?”

“If there be any, they are out of my way: I’ve seen none like Edgar.”

“You may see some; and he won’t always be handsome, and young, and may
not always be rich.”

“He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would
speak rationally.”

“Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry
Mr. Linton.”

“I don’t want your permission for that—I _shall_ marry him: and yet you
have not told me whether I’m right.”

“Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present. And
now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be
pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will
escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable
one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and
easy: where is the obstacle?”

“_Here_! and _here_!” replied Catherine, striking one hand on her
forehead, and the other on her breast: “in whichever place the soul
lives. In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!”

“That’s very strange! I cannot make it out.”

“It’s my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I’ll explain it: I
can’t do it distinctly; but I’ll give you a feeling of how I feel.”

She seated herself by me again: her countenance grew sadder and graver,
and her clasped hands trembled.

“Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?” she said, suddenly, after
some minutes’ reflection.

“Yes, now and then,” I answered.

“And so do I. I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me
ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me,
like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is
one: I’m going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of
it.”

“Oh! don’t, Miss Catherine!” I cried. “We’re dismal enough without
conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and
like yourself! Look at little Hareton! _he’s_ dreaming nothing dreary.
How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!”

“Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember
him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing:
nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to
listen: it’s not long; and I’ve no power to be merry to-night.”

“I won’t hear it, I won’t hear it!” I repeated, hastily.

I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had
an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which
I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was
vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject,
she recommenced in a short time.

“If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.”

“Because you are not fit to go there,” I answered. “All sinners would
be miserable in heaven.”

“But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there.”

“I tell you I won’t hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I’ll go to
bed,” I interrupted again.

She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.

“This is nothing,” cried she: “I was only going to say that heaven did
not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back
to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the
middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke
sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the
other. I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in
heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so
low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry
Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not
because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s
is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence.
Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise
from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he
heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he
stayed to hear no further. My companion, sitting on the ground, was
prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or
departure; but I started, and bade her hush!

“Why?” she asked, gazing nervously round.

“Joseph is here,” I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his
cartwheels up the road; “and Heathcliff will come in with him. I’m not
sure whether he were not at the door this moment.”

“Oh, he couldn’t overhear me at the door!” said she. “Give me Hareton,
while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you.
I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that
Heathcliff has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does
not know what being in love is!”

“I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you,” I returned;
“and if _you_ are his choice, he’ll be the most unfortunate creature
that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend,
and love, and all! Have you considered how you’ll bear the separation,
and how he’ll bear to be quite deserted in the world? Because, Miss
Catherine—”

“He quite deserted! we separated!” she exclaimed, with an accent of
indignation. “Who is to separate us, pray? They’ll meet the fate of
Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen: for no mortal creature. Every
Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could
consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that’s not what I intend—that’s not
what I mean! I shouldn’t be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded!
He’ll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must
shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he
learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now you think me a
selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I
married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid
Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.”

“With your husband’s money, Miss Catherine?” I asked. “You’ll find him
not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I’m hardly a judge, I
think that’s the worst motive you’ve given yet for being the wife of
young Linton.”

“It is not,” retorted she; “it is the best! The others were the
satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar’s sake, too, to satisfy him.
This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings
to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody
have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond
you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained
here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries,
and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in
living is himself. If all else perished, and _he_ remained, _I_ should
still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were
annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not
seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods:
time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My
love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of
little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I _am_ Heathcliff! He’s
always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always
a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our
separation again: it is impracticable; and—”

She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it
forcibly away. I was out of patience with her folly!

“If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss,” I said, “it only goes
to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in
marrying; or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl. But trouble
me with no more secrets: I’ll not promise to keep them.”

“You’ll keep that?” she asked, eagerly.

“No, I’ll not promise,” I repeated.

She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our
conversation; and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed
Hareton, while I made the supper. After it was cooked, my
fellow-servant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr.
Hindley; and we didn’t settle it till all was nearly cold. Then we came
to the agreement that we would let him ask, if he wanted any; for we
feared particularly to go into his presence when he had been some time
alone.

“And how isn’t that nowt comed in fro’ th’ field, be this time? What is
he about? girt idle seeght!” demanded the old man, looking round for
Heathcliff.

“I’ll call him,” I replied. “He’s in the barn, I’ve no doubt.”

I went and called, but got no answer. On returning, I whispered to
Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure;
and told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her
brother’s conduct regarding him. She jumped up in a fine fright, flung
Hareton on to the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself; not
taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk
would have affected him. She was absent such a while that Joseph
proposed we should wait no longer. He cunningly conjectured they were
staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing. They
were “ill eneugh for ony fahl manners,” he affirmed. And on their
behalf he added that night a special prayer to the usual
quarter-of-an-hour’s supplication before meat, and would have tacked
another to the end of the grace, had not his young mistress broken in
upon him with a hurried command that he must run down the road, and,
wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and make him re-enter directly!

“I want to speak to him, and I _must_, before I go upstairs,” she said.
“And the gate is open: he is somewhere out of hearing; for he would not
reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could.”

Joseph objected at first; she was too much in earnest, however, to
suffer contradiction; and at last he placed his hat on his head, and
walked grumbling forth. Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the
floor, exclaiming—“I wonder where he is—I wonder where he _can_ be!
What did I say, Nelly? I’ve forgotten. Was he vexed at my bad humour
this afternoon? Dear! tell me what I’ve said to grieve him? I do wish
he’d come. I do wish he would!”

“What a noise for nothing!” I cried, though rather uneasy myself. “What
a trifle scares you! It’s surely no great cause of alarm that
Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie
too sulky to speak to us in the hay-loft. I’ll engage he’s lurking
there. See if I don’t ferret him out!”

I departed to renew my search; its result was disappointment, and
Joseph’s quest ended in the same.

“Yon lad gets war und war!” observed he on re-entering. “He’s left th’
gate at t’ full swing, and Miss’s pony has trodden dahn two rigs o’
corn, and plottered through, raight o’er into t’ meadow! Hahsomdiver,
t’ maister ’ull play t’ devil to-morn, and he’ll do weel. He’s patience
itsseln wi’ sich careless, offald craters—patience itsseln he is! Bud
he’ll not be soa allus—yah’s see, all on ye! Yah mun’n’t drive him out
of his heead for nowt!”

“Have you found Heathcliff, you ass?” interrupted Catherine. “Have you
been looking for him, as I ordered?”

“I sud more likker look for th’ horse,” he replied. “It ’ud be to more
sense. Bud I can look for norther horse nur man of a neeght loike
this—as black as t’ chimbley! und Heathcliff’s noan t’ chap to coom at
_my_ whistle—happen he’ll be less hard o’ hearing wi’ _ye_!”

It _was_ a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined
to thunder, and I said we had better all sit down; the approaching rain
would be certain to bring him home without further trouble. However,
Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity. She kept wandering
to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which
permitted no repose; and at length took up a permanent situation on one
side of the wall, near the road: where, heedless of my expostulations
and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash
around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and
then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good
passionate fit of crying.

About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the
Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and
either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building:
a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the
east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the
kitchen-fire. We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us; and
Joseph swung on to his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the
patriarchs Noah and Lot, and, as in former times, spare the righteous,
though he smote the ungodly. I felt some sentiment that it must be a
judgment on us also. The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr. Earnshaw; and I
shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet
living. He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion
vociferate, more clamorously than before, that a wide distinction might
be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master. But
the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed;
excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in
refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawlless to
catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes. She came in
and lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to
the back, and putting her hands before it.

“Well, Miss!” I exclaimed, touching her shoulder; “you are not bent on
getting your death, are you? Do you know what o’clock it is? Half-past
twelve. Come, come to bed! there’s no use waiting any longer on that
foolish boy: he’ll be gone to Gimmerton, and he’ll stay there now. He
guesses we shouldn’t wait for him till this late hour: at least, he
guesses that only Mr. Hindley would be up; and he’d rather avoid having
the door opened by the master.”

“Nay, nay, he’s noan at Gimmerton,” said Joseph. “I’s niver wonder but
he’s at t’ bothom of a bog-hoile. This visitation worn’t for nowt, and
I wod hev’ ye to look out, Miss—yah muh be t’ next. Thank Hivin for
all! All warks togither for gooid to them as is chozzen, and piked out
fro’ th’ rubbidge! Yah knaw whet t’ Scripture ses.” And he began
quoting several texts, referring us to chapters and verses where we
might find them.

I, having vainly begged the wilful girl to rise and remove her wet
things, left him preaching and her shivering, and betook myself to bed
with little Hareton, who slept as fast as if everyone had been sleeping
round him. I heard Joseph read on a while afterwards; then I
distinguished his slow step on the ladder, and then I dropped asleep.

Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing
the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the
fireplace. The house-door was ajar, too; light entered from its
unclosed windows; Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen
hearth, haggard and drowsy.

“What ails you, Cathy?” he was saying when I entered: “you look as
dismal as a drowned whelp. Why are you so damp and pale, child?”

“I’ve been wet,” she answered reluctantly, “and I’m cold, that’s all.”

“Oh, she is naughty!” I cried, perceiving the master to be tolerably
sober. “She got steeped in the shower of yesterday evening, and there
she has sat the night through, and I couldn’t prevail on her to stir.”

Mr. Earnshaw stared at us in surprise. “The night through,” he
repeated. “What kept her up? not fear of the thunder, surely? That was
over hours since.”

Neither of us wished to mention Heathcliff’s absence, as long as we
could conceal it; so I replied, I didn’t know how she took it into her
head to sit up; and she said nothing. The morning was fresh and cool; I
threw back the lattice, and presently the room filled with sweet scents
from the garden; but Catherine called peevishly to me, “Ellen, shut the
window. I’m starving!” And her teeth chattered as she shrank closer to
the almost extinguished embers.

“She’s ill,” said Hindley, taking her wrist; “I suppose that’s the
reason she would not go to bed. Damn it! I don’t want to be troubled
with more sickness here. What took you into the rain?”

“Running after t’ lads, as usuald!” croaked Joseph, catching an
opportunity from our hesitation to thrust in his evil tongue. “If I war
yah, maister, I’d just slam t’ boards i’ their faces all on ’em, gentle
and simple! Never a day ut yah’re off, but yon cat o’ Linton comes
sneaking hither; and Miss Nelly, shoo’s a fine lass! shoo sits watching
for ye i’ t’ kitchen; and as yah’re in at one door, he’s out at
t’other; and, then, wer grand lady goes a-courting of her side! It’s
bonny behaviour, lurking amang t’ fields, after twelve o’ t’ night, wi’
that fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff! They think _I’m_
blind; but I’m noan: nowt ut t’ soart!—I seed young Linton boath coming
and going, and I seed _yah_” (directing his discourse to me), “yah
gooid fur nowt, slattenly witch! nip up and bolt into th’ house, t’
minute yah heard t’ maister’s horse-fit clatter up t’ road.”

“Silence, eavesdropper!” cried Catherine; “none of your insolence
before me! Edgar Linton came yesterday by chance, Hindley; and it was
_I_ who told him to be off: because I knew you would not like to have
met him as you were.”

“You lie, Cathy, no doubt,” answered her brother, “and you are a
confounded simpleton! But never mind Linton at present: tell me, were
you not with Heathcliff last night? Speak the truth, now. You need not
be afraid of harming him: though I hate him as much as ever, he did me
a good turn a short time since that will make my conscience tender of
breaking his neck. To prevent it, I shall send him about his business
this very morning; and after he’s gone, I’d advise you all to look
sharp: I shall only have the more humour for you.”

“I never saw Heathcliff last night,” answered Catherine, beginning to
sob bitterly: “and if you do turn him out of doors, I’ll go with him.
But, perhaps, you’ll never have an opportunity: perhaps, he’s gone.”
Here she burst into uncontrollable grief, and the remainder of her
words were inarticulate.

Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse, and bade her get
to her room immediately, or she shouldn’t cry for nothing! I obliged
her to obey; and I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we
reached her chamber: it terrified me. I thought she was going mad, and
I begged Joseph to run for the doctor. It proved the commencement of
delirium: Mr. Kenneth, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her
dangerously ill; she had a fever. He bled her, and he told me to let
her live on whey and water-gruel, and take care she did not throw
herself downstairs or out of the window; and then he left: for he had
enough to do in the parish, where two or three miles was the ordinary
distance between cottage and cottage.

Though I cannot say I made a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master
were no better, and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong
as a patient could be, she weathered it through. Old Mrs. Linton paid
us several visits, to be sure, and set things to rights, and scolded
and ordered us all; and when Catherine was convalescent, she insisted
on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange: for which deliverance we were
very grateful. But the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness:
she and her husband both took the fever, and died within a few days of
each other.

Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and
haughtier than ever. Heathcliff had never been heard of since the
evening of the thunder-storm; and, one day, I had the misfortune, when
she had provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance
on her: where indeed it belonged, as she well knew. From that period,
for several months, she ceased to hold any communication with me, save
in the relation of a mere servant. Joseph fell under a ban also: he
_would_ speak his mind, and lecture her all the same as if she were a
little girl; and she esteemed herself a woman, and our mistress, and
thought that her recent illness gave her a claim to be treated with
consideration. Then the doctor had said that she would not bear
crossing much; she ought to have her own way; and it was nothing less
than murder in her eyes for any one to presume to stand up and
contradict her. From Mr. Earnshaw and his companions she kept aloof;
and tutored by Kenneth, and serious threats of a fit that often
attended her rages, her brother allowed her whatever she pleased to
demand, and generally avoided aggravating her fiery temper. He was
rather _too_ indulgent in humouring her caprices; not from affection,
but from pride: he wished earnestly to see her bring honour to the
family by an alliance with the Lintons, and as long as she let him
alone she might trample on us like slaves, for aught he cared! Edgar
Linton, as multitudes have been before and will be after him, was
infatuated: and believed himself the happiest man alive on the day he
led her to Gimmerton Chapel, three years subsequent to his father’s
death.

Much against my inclination, I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights
and accompany her here. Little Hareton was nearly five years old, and I
had just begun to teach him his letters. We made a sad parting; but
Catherine’s tears were more powerful than ours. When I refused to go,
and when she found her entreaties did not move me, she went lamenting
to her husband and brother. The former offered me munificent wages; the
latter ordered me to pack up: he wanted no women in the house, he said,
now that there was no mistress; and as to Hareton, the curate should
take him in hand, by-and-by. And so I had but one choice left: to do as
I was ordered. I told the master he got rid of all decent people only
to run to ruin a little faster; I kissed Hareton, said good-by; and
since then he has been a stranger: and it’s very queer to think it, but
I’ve no doubt he has completely forgotten all about Ellen Dean, and
that he was ever more than all the world to her and she to him!

* * * * *


At this point of the housekeeper’s story she chanced to glance towards
the time-piece over the chimney; and was in amazement on seeing the
minute-hand measure half-past one. She would not hear of staying a
second longer: in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of
her narrative myself. And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I
have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go
also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs.




CHAPTER X


A charming introduction to a hermit’s life! Four weeks’ torture,
tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies,
and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this
dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible
intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till
spring!

Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago
he sent me a brace of grouse—the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is
not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a
great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was
charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some
other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is
quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could
enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her
tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes:
I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three
years; and the heroine was married. I’ll ring: she’ll be delighted to
find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came.

“It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,” she commenced.

“Away, away with it!” I replied; “I desire to have—”

“The doctor says you must drop the powders.”

“With all my heart! Don’t interrupt me. Come and take your seat here.
Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting
out of your pocket—that will do—now continue the history of Mr.
Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish
his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he
get a sizar’s place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours
by drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more
promptly on the English highways?”

“He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I
couldn’t give my word for any. I stated before that I didn’t know how
he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise
his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with
your leave, I’ll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse
and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning?”

“Much.”

“That’s good news.”

* * * * *


I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my
agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to
expect. She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his
sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to
her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the
honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no
mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who
_can_ be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither
opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a
deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but
if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow
cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a
frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a
time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab
of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing
his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less
touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as
harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine
had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with
sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration
in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never
subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was
welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that
they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness.

It ended. Well, we _must_ be for ourselves in the long run; the mild
and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it
ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one’s interest
was not the chief consideration in the other’s thoughts. On a mellow
evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket
of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon
looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to
lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the
building. I set my burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and
lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet
air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I
heard a voice behind me say,—“Nelly, is that you?”

It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in
the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I
turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut,
and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in
the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in
dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and
held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. “Who
can it be?” I thought. “Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no
resemblance to his.”

“I have waited here an hour,” he resumed, while I continued staring;
“and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I
dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I’m not a stranger!”

A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered
with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and
singular. I remembered the eyes.

“What!” I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor,
and I raised my hands in amazement. “What! you come back? Is it really
you? Is it?”

“Yes, Heathcliff,” he replied, glancing from me up to the windows,
which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from
within. “Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you
needn’t be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word
with her—your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires
to see her.”

“How will she take it?” I exclaimed. “What will she do? The surprise
bewilders me—it will put her out of her head! And you _are_ Heathcliff!
But altered! Nay, there’s no comprehending it. Have you been for a
soldier?”

“Go and carry my message,” he interrupted, impatiently. “I’m in hell
till you do!”

He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where
Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At
length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the
candles lighted, and I opened the door.

They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall,
and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the
valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top
(for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the
sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of
the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our
old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side. Both
the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked
wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand;
and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my
question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to
return, and mutter, “A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma’am.”

“What does he want?” asked Mrs. Linton.

“I did not question him,” I answered.

“Well, close the curtains, Nelly,” she said; “and bring up tea. I’ll be
back again directly.”

She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was.

“Some one mistress does not expect,” I replied. “That Heathcliff—you
recollect him, sir—who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw’s.”

“What! the gipsy—the ploughboy?” he cried. “Why did you not say so to
Catherine?”

“Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,” I said. “She’d be
sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off.
I guess his return will make a jubilee to her.”

Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that
overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they
were below, for he exclaimed quickly: “Don’t stand there, love! Bring
the person in, if it be anyone particular.” Ere long, I heard the click
of the latch, and Catherine flew upstairs, breathless and wild; too
excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have
surmised an awful calamity.

“Oh, Edgar, Edgar!” she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. “Oh,
Edgar darling! Heathcliff’s come back—he is!” And she tightened her
embrace to a squeeze.

“Well, well,” cried her husband, crossly, “don’t strangle me for that!
He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to
be frantic!”

“I know you didn’t like him,” she answered, repressing a little the
intensity of her delight. “Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now.
Shall I tell him to come up?”

“Here,” he said, “into the parlour?”

“Where else?” she asked.

He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for
him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression—half angry, half
laughing at his fastidiousness.

“No,” she added, after a while; “I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two
tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being
gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders.
Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If
so, give directions. I’ll run down and secure my guest. I’m afraid the
joy is too great to be real!”

She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her.

“_You_ bid him step up,” he said, addressing me; “and, Catherine, try
to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness
the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.”

I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently
anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without
waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and
mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the
lady’s glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the
door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton;
and then she seized Linton’s reluctant fingers and crushed them into
his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed,
more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had
grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed
quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea
of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in
expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton’s; it looked
intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A
half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full
of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified:
quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace. My master’s
surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss
how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped
his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to
speak.

“Sit down, sir,” he said, at length. “Mrs. Linton, recalling old times,
would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am
gratified when anything occurs to please her.”

“And I also,” answered Heathcliff, “especially if it be anything in
which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.”

He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if
she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his
to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed
back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from
hers. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer
embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a
feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across
the rug, seized Heathcliff’s hands again, and laughed like one beside
herself.

“I shall think it a dream to-morrow!” she cried. “I shall not be able
to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more.
And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don’t deserve this welcome. To be absent
and silent for three years, and never to think of me!”

“A little more than you have thought of me,” he murmured. “I heard of
your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard
below, I meditated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a
stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle
my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on
myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of
meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you’ll not drive me off
again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause.
I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and
you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!”

“Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the
table,” interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and
a due measure of politeness. “Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk,
wherever he may lodge to-night; and I’m thirsty.”

She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by
the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room.
The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine’s cup was never filled:
she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer,
and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his
stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he
went to Gimmerton?

“No, to Wuthering Heights,” he answered: “Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when
I called this morning.”

Mr. Earnshaw invited _him_! and _he_ called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered
this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of
a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a
cloak? I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he
had better have remained away.

About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs.
Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and
pulling me by the hair to rouse me.

“I cannot rest, Ellen,” she said, by way of apology. “And I want some
living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky,
because I’m glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to
open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he
affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so
sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I
gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for
a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.”

“What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?” I answered. “As lads they
had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much
to hear him praised: it’s human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him,
unless you would like an open quarrel between them.”

“But does it not show great weakness?” pursued she. “I’m not envious: I
never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella’s yellow hair and the
whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the
family exhibit for her. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute
sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish
mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It
pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they
are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was
made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart
chastisement might improve them all the same.”

“You’re mistaken, Mrs. Linton,” said I. “They humour you: I know what
there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge
their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your
desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal
consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very
capable of being as obstinate as you.”

“And then we shall fight to the death, sha’n’t we, Nelly?” she
returned, laughing. “No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton’s
love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn’t wish to
retaliate.”

I advised her to value him the more for his affection.

“I do,” she answered, “but he needn’t resort to whining for trifles. It
is childish; and, instead of melting into tears because I said that
Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone’s regard, and it would honour the
first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said
it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to
him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason
to object to him, I’m sure he behaved excellently!”

“What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?” I inquired. “He
is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering
the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!”

“He explained it,” she replied. “I wonder as much as you. He said he
called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you
resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to
questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living;
and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at
cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and,
finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again
in the evening: to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to
select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn’t trouble himself to
reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has
basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for
resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install
himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an
attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope
that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could
have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for
permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother’s
covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy;
though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other.”

“It’s a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!” said I.
“Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?”

“None for my friend,” she replied: “his strong head will keep him from
danger; a little for Hindley: but he can’t be made morally worse than
he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this
evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry
rebellion against Providence. Oh, I’ve endured very, very bitter
misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he’d be ashamed to
cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which
induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently
felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently
as I. However, it’s over, and I’ll take no revenge on his folly; I can
afford to suffer anything hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive
slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon
for provoking it; and, as a proof, I’ll go make my peace with Edgar
instantly. Good-night! I’m an angel!”

In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her
fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only
abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by
Catherine’s exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to
her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and
she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in
return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and
servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine.

Heathcliff—Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future—used the liberty of
visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed
estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also,
deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in
receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected.
He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was
remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of
feeling. My master’s uneasiness experienced a lull, and further
circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space.

His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of
Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards
the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of
eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen
feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved
her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside
the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible
fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such
a one’s power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff’s disposition: to
know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable
and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank
forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He
would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment
rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation
of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the
blame on Heathcliff’s deliberate designing.

We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and
pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and
teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her
limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of
ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day,
when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast,
complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the
mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar
neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left
open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a
hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily
insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily,
threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to
exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only
Catherine’s harshness which made her unhappy.

“How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?” cried the mistress,
amazed at the unreasonable assertion. “You are surely losing your
reason. When have I been harsh, tell me?”

“Yesterday,” sobbed Isabella, “and now!”

“Yesterday!” said her sister-in-law. “On what occasion?”

“In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased,
while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!”

“And that’s your notion of harshness?” said Catherine, laughing. “It
was no hint that your company was superfluous; we didn’t care whether
you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff’s talk would have
nothing entertaining for your ears.”

“Oh, no,” wept the young lady; “you wished me away, because you knew I
liked to be there!”

“Is she sane?” asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. “I’ll repeat our
conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it
could have had for you.”

“I don’t mind the conversation,” she answered: “I wanted to be with—”

“Well?” said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the
sentence.

“With him: and I won’t be always sent off!” she continued, kindling up.
“You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but
yourself!”

“You are an impertinent little monkey!” exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in
surprise. “But I’ll not believe this idiocy! It is impossible that you
can covet the admiration of Heathcliff—that you consider him an
agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?”

“No, you have not,” said the infatuated girl. “I love him more than
ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!”

“I wouldn’t be you for a kingdom, then!” Catherine declared,
emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely. “Nelly, help me to
convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an
unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid
wilderness of furze and whinstone. I’d as soon put that little canary
into the park on a winter’s day, as recommend you to bestow your heart
on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing
else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don’t imagine that
he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern
exterior! He’s not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a
rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, ‘Let
this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to
harm them;’ I say, ‘Let them alone, because _I_ should hate them to be
wronged:’ and he’d crush you like a sparrow’s egg, Isabella, if he
found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn’t love a Linton; and
yet he’d be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations:
avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There’s my picture: and
I’m his friend—so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you,
I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his
trap.”

Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation.

“For shame! for shame!” she repeated, angrily. “You are worse than
twenty foes, you poisonous friend!”

“Ah! you won’t believe me, then?” said Catherine. “You think I speak
from wicked selfishness?”

“I’m certain you do,” retorted Isabella; “and I shudder at you!”

“Good!” cried the other. “Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I
have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.”—

“And I must suffer for her egotism!” she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left
the room. “All, all is against me: she has blighted my single
consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn’t she? Mr. Heathcliff is
not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he
remember her?”

“Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,” I said. “He’s a bird of bad
omen: no mate for you. Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can’t
contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any
one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is.
Honest people don’t hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has
he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man
whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came.
They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been
borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I
heard only a week ago—it was Joseph who told me—I met him at Gimmerton:
‘Nelly,’ he said, ‘we’s hae a crowner’s ’quest enow, at ahr folks’. One
on ’em ’s a’most getten his finger cut off wi’ hauding t’ other fro’
stickin’ hisseln loike a cawlf. That’s maister, yah knaw, ’at ’s soa
up o’ going tuh t’ grand ’sizes. He’s noan feared o’ t’ bench o’
judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on
’em, not he! He fair likes—he langs to set his brazened face agean ’em!
And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he’s a rare ’un. He can girn a
laugh as well ’s onybody at a raight divil’s jest. Does he niver say
nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t’ Grange? This is t’
way on ’t:—up at sun-down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und
can’le-light till next day at noon: then, t’ fooil gangs banning un
raving to his cham’er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i’ thur
lugs fur varry shame; un’ the knave, why he can caint his brass, un’
ate, un’ sleep, un’ off to his neighbour’s to gossip wi’ t’ wife. I’
course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur’s goold runs into his
pocket, and her fathur’s son gallops down t’ broad road, while he flees
afore to oppen t’ pikes!’ Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal,
but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff’s conduct be true, you
would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?”

“You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!” she replied. “I’ll not listen
to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me
that there is no happiness in the world!”

Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or
persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time
to reflect. The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next
town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his
absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were
sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter
alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of
her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on
mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she
laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter
to _her_. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was
sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips.
Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the
door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would
gladly have done had it been practicable.

“Come in, that’s right!” exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair
to the fire. “Here are two people sadly in need of a th

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