APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/wuth_heigh/CHAP_12_23

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                        CHAPTER XII.


While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and
almost always in tears, and her brother shut himself up among books that
he never opened - wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague
expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own
accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation - and she fasted
pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was
ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to
cast himself at her feet, I went about my household duties, convinced
that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged
in my body. I wasted no condolences on miss, nor any expostulations on
my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who
yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I
determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it
was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint
dawn of its progress, as I thought at first.

     Mrs. Linton on the third day unbarred her door, and having finished
the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a
basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a
speech meant for Edgar's ears. I believed no such thing, so I kept it to
myself, and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank
eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and
groaning. "Oh, I will die," she exclaimed, "since no one cares anything
 about me. I wish I had not taken that." Then a good while after I
heard her murmur, "No, I'll not die--he'd be glad - he does not love me
at all - he would never miss me!"

     "Did you want anything, ma'am?" I inquired, still   preserving my
external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange,
exaggerated manner.

     "What is that apathetic being doing?" she demanded, pushing the
thick entangled locks from her wasted face. "Has he fallen into a
lethargy, or is he dead?"

     "Neither," replied I, "if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well,
I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought. He
is continually among his books, since he has no other society."

     I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but
I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder.

     "Among his books!" she cried, confounded. "And I dying - I on the
brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered?" continued
she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite
wall. "Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet--in play,
perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if
it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels I'll choose between
these two - either to starve at once (that would be no punishment unless
he had a heart), or to recover, and leave the country. Are you
speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly
indifferent for my life?"

     "Why, ma'am," I answered, "the master has no idea of your being
deranged; and, of course, he does not fear that you will let yourself
die of hunger."

     "You think not? Cannot you tell him I will?" she returned.
"Persuade him; speak of your own mind; say you are certain I will!"

     "No, you forget, Mrs. Linton," I suggested, "that you have eaten
some food with a relish this evening, and tomorrow you will perceive its
good effects."

     "If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I'd kill
myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids; and
oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy
you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and
despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all
turned to enemies in a few hours. They have, I'm positive - the people
here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces!
Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room; it would be
so dreadful to watch Catherine go! And Edgar standing solemnly by to see
it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to
his house, and going back to his books! What in the name of all that
feels has he to do with books when I am dying?"

     She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr.
Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her
feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth;
then raising herself up, all burning, desired that I would open the
window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the
north-east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face
and the changes of her moods began to alarm me terribly, and brought to
my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she
should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent; now,
supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she
seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the     feathers from the
rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to
their different species. Her mind had strayed to other associations.

     "That's a turkey's," she murmured to herself, "and this is a wild
duck's, and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the
pillows; no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the
floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock's; and this -     I
should know it among a thousand - it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird, wheeling
over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest,
for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This
feather was picked up from the heath; the bird was not shot. We saw its
nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over
it, and the old ones dare not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot
a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot
my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look."

     "Give over with that baby-work!" I interrupted, dragging the pillow
away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing
its contents by handfuls. "Lie down and shut your eyes; you're
wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow."

     I went here and there collecting it.

     "I see in you, Nelly," she continued dreamily, "an aged woman. You
have gray hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under
Peniston Crag, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers,
pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's
what you'll come to fifty years hence. I know you are not so now. I'm
not wandering; you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really were
that withered hag, and I should think I was under Peniston Crag; and I'm
conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the
black press shine like jet."

     "The black press? Where is that?" I asked. "You are talking in your
sleep!"

     "It's against the wall, as it always is," she replied. "It does
appear odd. I see a face in it!"

     "There's no press in the room, and never was," said I, resuming my
seat, and looping up the curtain, that I might watch her.

     "Don't you see that face?" she inquired, gazing earnestly at the
mirror.

     And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it
to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.

     "It's behind there still!" she pursued anxiously. "And it stirred.
Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! O Nelly, the
room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!"

     I took her hand in mine, and bade her be composed, for a succession
of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze
towards the glass. "There's nobody here!" I insisted. "It was yourself
Mrs. Linton. You knew it a while since."

     "Myself!" she gasped; "and the clock is striking twelve! It's true,
then; that's dreadful!"

     Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes.
I attempted to steal to the door, with an intention of calling her
husband; but I was summoned     back by a piercing shriek. The shawl had
dropped from the frame.

     "Why, what is the matter?" cried I. "Who is coward now? Wake up!
That is the glass - the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it;
and there am I too, by your side."

     Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror
gradually passed from her countenance. Its paleness gave place to a glow
of shame.

     "Oh dear! I thought I was at home," she sighed--"I thought I was
lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got
confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don't say anything, but stay
with me. I dread sleeping. My dreams appall me."

     "A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am," I answered; "and I hope
this suffering will prevent your trying starving again."

     "Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!" she went on
bitterly, wringing her hands. "And that wind sounding in the firs by the
lattice. Do let me feel it - it comes straight down the moor - do let me
have   one breath!"

     To pacify her, I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast
rushed through. I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now,
her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her
spirit. Our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child.

     "How long is it since I shut myself in here?" she asked, suddenly
reviving.

     "It was Monday evening," I replied; "and this is Thursday night, or
rather Friday morning, at present."

     "What! of the same week?" she exclaimed. "Only that brief time?"

     "Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,"
observed I.

     "Well, it seems a weary number of hours," she muttered doubtfully.
"It must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had
quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this
room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness
overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how
certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in
teasing me. I had no command of tongue or brain, and he did not guess my
agony perhaps; it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his
voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be
dawn; and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept
recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay
there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning
the gray square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled
bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just
waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to
discover what it could be; and, most strangely, the whole last seven
years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at
all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose
from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff.
I was laid alone, for the first time; and rousing from a dismal doze,
after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside. It
struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet; and then memory burst
in. My late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say
why I felt so wildly wretched. It must have been temporary derangement,
for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had
been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all
in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke
into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a
stranger, an exile and outcast thenceforth from what had been my world -
you may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head
as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have
spoken to Edgar - indeed you should
 - and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were
out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy and
free, and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so
changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those
hills. Open the window again wide - fasten it open! Quick! Why don't you
move?"

     "Because I won't give you your death of cold," I answered.

     "You won't give me a chance of life, you mean," she said sullenly.
"However, I'm not helpless yet. I'll open it myself."

     And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the
room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of
the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I
entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon
found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I
became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no
moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness. Not a light gleamed
from any house, far or near - all had been extinguished long ago; and
those at Wuthering Heights were never visible - still she asserted she
caught their shining.

     "Look!" she cried eagerly; "that's my room with the candle in it,
and the tree swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's
garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home,
that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough
journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton
Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and
dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But,
Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep
you. I'll not lie there by myself. They may bury me twelve feet deep,
and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with
me. I never will!"

     She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. "He's considering;
he'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then - not through that
kirkyard. You are slow! Be content; you always followed me!"

     Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning
how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold
of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice),
when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and
Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library, and in
passing through the lobby had noticed our talking, and been attracted by
curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour.

     "O sir!" I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the
sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber, "my poor
mistress is ill, and she quite masters me. I cannot manage her at all.
Pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she's
hard to guide any way but her own."

     "Catherine ill?" he said, hastening to us. "Shut the window, Ellen!
- Catherine! why -  - "

     He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote
him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified
astonishment.

     "She's been fretting here," I continued, "and eating scarcely
anything, and never complaining. She would admit none of us till this
evening, and so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not
aware of it ourselves; but it is nothing."

     I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly. The master frowned. "It
is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?" he said sternly. "You shall account more
clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!" And he took his wife in his
arms, and looked at her with anguish.

     At first she gave him no glance of recognition; he was invisible to
her abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned
her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred
her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her.

     "Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?" she said, with angry
animation. "You are one of those things that are ever found when least
wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty
of lamentations now - I see we shall; but they can't keep me from my
narrow home out yonder - my resting-place, where I'm bound before spring
is over! There it is - not among the Lintons, mind, under the
chapelroof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please
yourself whether you go to them or come to me!"

     "Catherine, what have you done?" commenced the master. "Am I
nothing to you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath -  - "

     "Hush!" cried Mrs. Linton - "hush, this moment! You mention that
name, and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What
you touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hilltop
before you lay hands on me again. I don't want you, Edgar. I'm past
wanting you. Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation,
for all you had in me is gone."

     "Her mind wanders, sir," I interposed - "she has been talking
nonsense the whole evening; but let her have quiet and proper
attendance, and she'll rally. Hereafter we must be cautious how we vex
her."

     "I desire no further advice from you," answered Mr. Linton. "You
knew your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And
not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was
heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change!"

     I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for
another's wicked waywardness. "I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be
headstrong and domineering," cried I, "but I didn't know that you wished
to foster her fierce temper. I didn't know that, to humour her, I should
wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful servant in
telling you, and I have got a faithful servant's wages! Well, it will
teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may gather intelligence
for yourself."

     "The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service,
Ellen Dean," he replied.

     "You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?"
said I. "Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to miss, and
to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to
poison the mistress against you?"

     Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our
conversation.

     "Ah! Nelly has played traitor!" she exclaimed passionately - "Nelly
is my hidden enemy! You witch! So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us! Let
me go, and I'll make her rue! I'll make her howl a recantation!"

     A maniac's fury kindled under her brows. She struggled desperately
to disengage herself from Linton's arms. I felt no inclination to tarry
the event; and resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I
quitted the chamber.

     In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle
hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly,
evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I
stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction
impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world.
My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than
vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a hand kerchief,
and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the animal, and lifted
it into the garden. I had seen it follow its mistress upstairs when she
went to bed, and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what
mischievous person had treated it so. While untying the knot round the
hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet
galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to
occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought,
though it was a strange sound in that place at two o'clock in the
morning.

     Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a
patient in the village as I came up the street, and my account of
Catherine Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately.
He was a plain, rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of
her surviving this second attack, unless she were more submissive to his
directions than she had shown herself before.

     "Nelly Dean," said he, "I can't help fancying there's an extra
cause for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We've odd
reports up here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill
for a trifle; and that sort of people should not, either. It's hard work
bringing them through fevers and such things. How did it begin?"

     "The master will inform you," I answered; "but you are acquainted
with the Earnshaws' violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all.
I may say this; it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a
tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That's her account, at least, for
she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up. Afterwards she
refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half
dream, knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all
sorts of strange ideas and illusions."

     "Mr. Linton will be sorry?" observed Kenneth interrogatively.

     "Sorry? He'll break his heart should anything happen!" I replied.
"Don't alarm him more than necessary."

     "Well, I told him to beware," said my companion; "and he must bide
the consequences of neglecting my warning. Hasn't he been intimate with
Mr. Heathcliff lately?"

     "Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange," answered I, "though
more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy than
because the master likes his company. At present he's discharged from
the trouble of calling, owing to some presumptuous aspirations after
Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he'll be taken in
again."

     "And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?" was the
doctor's next question.

     "I'm not in her confidence," returned I, reluctant to continue the
subject.

     "No; she's a sly one," he remarked, shaking his head. "She keeps
her own counsel. But she's a real little fool. I have it from good
authority that last night (and a pretty night it was) she and Heathcliff
were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two
hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse
and away with him. My informant said she could only put him off by
pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after
that. When it was to be, he didn't hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look
sharp."

     This news filled me with fresh fears. I outstripped Kenneth, and
ran most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet.
I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the
house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have
escaped to the road had I not seized and conveyed it in with me. On
ascending to Isabella's room my suspicions were confirmed. It was empty.
Had I been a few hours sooner, Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested
her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare possibility
of overtaking them if pursued instantly. I could not pursue them,
however; and I dare not rouse the family, and fill the place with
confusion - still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he
was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second
grief. I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to
take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly
composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay in a troubled sleep.
Her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy. He now
hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her
painfully expressive features.

     The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to
him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve
around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me he signified the
threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of
intellect.

     I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton - indeed, we
never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual
hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging
whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one
was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she
slept. Her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient
for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her
sisterin-law. I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was
spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of the
maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton,
came panting upstairs, open mouthed, and dashed into the chamber,
crying,--
     "Oh dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master, master, our young
lady - --"

     "Hold your noise!" cried I hastily, enraged at her clamorous
manner.

     "Speak lower, Mary. What is the matter?" said Mr. Linton. "What
ails your young lady?"

     "She's gone, she's gone! Yon Heathcliff's run off wi' her!" gasped
the girl.

     "That is not true!" exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. "It
cannot be. How has the idea entered your head? - Ellen Dean, go and seek
her. It is incredible. It cannot be."

     As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his
demand to know her reasons for such an assertion.

     "Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here," she
stammered, "and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange. I
thought he meant for missis's sickness, so I answered yes. Then says he,
'There's somebody gone after 'em, I guess?' I stared. He saw I knew
nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to
have a horse's shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of
Gimmerton, not very long after midnight; and how the blacksmith's lass
had got up to spy who they were. She knew them both directly. And she
noticed the man--Heathcliff it was, she felt certain; nob'dy could
mistake him, besides - put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment.
The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water,
while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff
held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the
village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass
said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this
morning."

     I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room,
confirming, when I returned, the servant's statement. Mr. Linton had
resumed his seat by the bed. On my re-entrance he raised his eyes, read
the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order
or uttering a word.

     "Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back?"
I inquired. "How should we do?"

     "She went of her own accord," answered the master; "she had a right
to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is
only my sister in name ...not because I disown her, but because she has
disowned me."

     And that was all he said on the subject. He did not make a single
inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send
what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was,
when I knew it.

                        CHAPTER XIII.


For two months the fugitives remained absent. In those two months Mrs.
Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated
a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly
than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching and patiently
enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason
could inflict; and though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the
grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant
future anxiety
 - in fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to
preserve a mere ruin of humanity - he knew no limits in gratitude and
joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger; and hour after
hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily
health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her
mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be
entirely her former self.

     The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the
following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a
handful of golden  crocuses. Her eye, long stranger to any gleam of
pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered
them eagerly together.

     "These are the earliest flowers at the Heights," she exclaimed.
"They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted
snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost
gone?"

     "The snow is quite gone down here, darling," replied her husband,
"and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors. The sky is
blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim
full. Catherine, last spring at this time I was longing to have you
under this roof; now I wish you were a mile or two up those hills; the
air blows so sweetly, I feel that it would cure you."

     "I shall never be there but once more," said the invalid; "and then
you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long
again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you
were happy to-day."

     Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her
by the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the
tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding. We
knew she was really better, and therefore decided that long confinement
to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be
partially removed by a change of scene. The master told me to light a
fire in the many-weeks-deserted parlour, and to set an easy-chair in the
sunshine by the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long
while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the
objects round her, which, though familiar, were free from the dreary
associations investing her hated sick chamber. By evening she seemed
greatly exhausted, yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that
apartment; and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till
another room could be prepared. To obviate the fatigue of mounting and
descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present, on
the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move
from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm. Ah, I thought myself she
might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to
desire it, for on her existence depended that of another; we cherished
the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened,
and his lands secured from a stranger's gripe, by the birth of an heir.

     I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks
from her departure, a short note announcing her marriage with
Heathcliff. It appeared dry and cold, but at the bottom was dotted in
with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and
reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him, asserting that she
could not help it then, and, being done, she had now no power to repeal
it. Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and in a fortnight more I
got a long letter which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride
just out of the honeymoon. I'll read it, for I keep it yet. Any relic of
the dead is precious if they were valued living.

     DEAR ELLEN, it begins, I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and
heard for the first time that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill.
I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry
or too distressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to
somebody, and the only choice left me is you.

     Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again - that
my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I
left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him and
Catherine. I can't follow it, though  (those words are underlined); they
need not expect me; and they may draw what conclusions they please,
taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or
deficient affection.

     The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask
you two questions; the first is - How did you contrive to preserve the
common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot
recognize any sentiment which those around share with me.

     The second question I have great interest in; it is this - -Is Mr.
Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I shan't
tell my reasons for making this inquiry, but I beseech you to explain,
if you can, what I have married - that is, when you call to see me; and
you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me
something from Edgar.

     Now you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am
led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell
on such subjects as the lack of external comforts; they never occupy my
thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and
dance for joy if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and
the rest was an unnatural dream.

     The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors: by that
I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour to
inspect the park and the gardens, and probably the place itself, as well
as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the
farmhouse, and your old fellow-servant Joseph issued out to receive us
by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded
to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my
face, squint malignantly, project his under lip, and turn away. Then he
took the two horses and led them into the stables, reappearing for the
purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle.

     Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen - a
dingy, untidy hole. I dare say you would not know it, it is so changed
since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong
in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and
about his mouth.

     "This is Edgar's legal nephew," I reflected - "mine in a manner. I
must shake hands, and - yes - I must kiss him. It is right to establish
a good understanding at the beginning."

     I approached, and attempting to take his chubby fist, said,--
     "How do you do, my dear?"

     He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend.

     "Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?" was my next essay at
conversation.

     An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not "frame
off," rewarded my perseverance.

     "Hey, Throttler, lad!" whispered the little wretch, rousing a
half-bred bull-dog from its lair in a corner. "Now, wilt thou be
ganging?" he asked authoritatively.

     Love for my life urged a compliance. I stepped over the threshold
to wait till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere
visible, and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables and requested to
accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his
nose and replied,--
     "Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it?
Minching un munching! How can I tell whet ye say?"

     "I say I wish you to come with me into the house!" I cried,
thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.

     "None o' me. I getten summut else to do," he answered, and
continued his work, moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my
dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter,
I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.

     I walked round the yard and through a wicket to another door, at
which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant
might show himself. After a short suspense it was opened by a tall,
gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his
features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders,
and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty
annihilated.

     "What's your business here?" he demanded grimly. "Who are you?"

     "My name was Isabella Linton," I replied. "You've seen me before,
sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I
suppose by your permission."

     "Is he come back, then?" asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry
wolf,

     "Yes, we came just now," I said; "but he left me by the kitchen
door, and when I would have gone in your little boy played sentinel over
the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog."

     "It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!" growled my
future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of
discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of
execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the "fiend"
deceived him.

     I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost
inclined to slip away before he finished cursing; but ere I could
execute that intention he ordered me in, and shut and refastened the
door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge
apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform gray, and the once brilliant
pewter dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook
of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether
I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom. Mr. Earnshaw
vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his
pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction
was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I
shrank from disturbing him again.

     You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly
cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth,
and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home,
containing the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be
the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles. I could not
overpass them. I questioned with myself--Where must I turn for comfort?
and (mind you don't tell Edgar or Catherine) above every sorrow beside,
this rose pre-eminent - despair at finding nobody who could or would
be my ally against Heathcliff. I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights
almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living
alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he
did not fear their intermeddling.

     I sat and thought a doleful time. The clock struck eight, and nine,
and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast,
and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced
itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman's voice in tbe
house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal
anticipations, which at last spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and
weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted
opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened
surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed,--
     "I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the
maidservant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me."

     "We have none," he answered. "You must wait on yourself."

     "Where must I sleep, then?" I sobbed. I was beyond regarding
self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.

     "Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber," said he. "Open that
door; he's in there."

     I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the
strangest tone,--
     "Be so good as to turn your lock and draw your bolt; don't omit
it!"

     "Well!" I said; "but why, Mr. Earnshaw?" I did not relish the
notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.

     "Look here!" he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously
constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the
barrel. "That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot
resist going up with this every night and trying his door. If once I
find it open, he's done for! I do it invariably, even though the minute
before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me
refrain. It is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by
killing him. You fight against that devil for love as long as you may;
when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!"

     I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me.
How powerful I should be, possessing such an instrument! I took it from
his hand and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression
my face assumed during a brief second; it was not horror
 - it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back jealously, shut
the knife, and returned it to its concealment.

     "I don't care if you tell him," said he. "Put him on his guard, and
watch for him. You know the terms we are on, I see. His danger does not
shock you."

     "What has Heathcliff done to you?" I asked. "In what has he wronged
you, to warrant this appalling hatred? Wouldn't it be wiser to bid him
quit the house?"

     "No!" thundered Earnshaw. "Should he offer to leave me, he's a dead
man. Persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess. Am I to lose
all without a chance of retrieval? Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh,
damnation! I wilj have it back, and I'll have his gold too, and then his
blood, and hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with
that guest than ever it was before!"

     You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits. He is
clearly on the verge of madness. He was so last night at least. I
shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's ill-bred
moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody
walk, and I raised the latch and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was
bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it, and
a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of
the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl. I
conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and
being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply,
"I'll make the porridge!" I removed the vessel out of his reach, and
proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit.

     "Mr. Earnshaw," I continued, "directs me to wait on myself. I will.
I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve."

     "Gooid Lord!" he muttered, sitting down and stroking his ribbed
stockings from the knee to the ankle. "If there's to be fresh
ortherings, just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev a
mistress set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver did
think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place, but I doubt it's
nigh at hand!"

     This lamentation drew no notice from me. I went briskly to work,
sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun, but
compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall
past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its
apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the
handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery
with growing indignation.

     "Thear!" he ejaculated. "Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge
to-neeght; they'il be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean!
I'd fling in bowl un all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un then
ye'll hae done wi't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved
out!"

     It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins.
Four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought
from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling
from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have
his in a mug, affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so
dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety,
assuring me repeatedly that "the barn was every bit as good" as I, "and
every bit as wollsome," and wondering how I could fashion to be so
conceited. Meanwhile the infant ruffian continued sucking, and glowered
up at me defyingly as he slavered into the jug.

     "I shall have my supper in another room," I said. "Have you no
place you call a parlour?"

     "Parlour!" he echoed sneeringly--"parlour! Nay, we've noa parlours.
If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un if yah dunnut
loike maister, there's us."

     "Then I shall go upstairs," I answered. "Show me a chamber."

     I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk.
With great grumblings the fellow rose and preceded me in my ascent. We
mounted to the garrets. He opened a door now and then to look into the
apartments we passed.

     "Here's a rahm," he said at last, flinging back a cranky board on
hinges. "It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There's a pack o'
corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane. If ye're feared o' muckying
yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' to' top on't."

     The "rahm" was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and
grain, various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a
wide, bare space in the middle.

     "Why, man!" I exclaimed, facing him angrily, "this is not a place
to sleep in. I wish to see my bedroom."

     "Bedrume!" he repeated, in a tone of mockery. "Yah's see all
t'bedrumes thear is. Yon's mine."

     He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in
being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless
bed with an indigocoloured quilt at one end.

     "What do I want with yours?" I retorted. "I suppose Mr. Heathcliff
does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?"

     "Oh, it's Maister Hathecliff's ye're wanting?" cried he, as if
making a new discovery. "Couldn't ye ha' said soa, at onst? Un then I
mud ha' telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut
see. He allas keeps it locked, un nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln."

     "You've a nice house, Joseph," I could not refrain from observing,
"and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the
madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my
fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose. There are
other rooms. For Heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewbere!"

     He made no reply to this adjuration, only plodding doggedly down
the wooden steps, and halting before an apartment which, from that halt
and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best
one. There was a carpet - a good one--but the pattern was obliterated by
dust; a fireplace hung with cut paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome
oak bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material
and modern make, but they had evidently experienced rough usage - the
vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod
supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to
trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them
severely, and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was
endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession,
when my fool of a guide announced, "This here is t' maister's." My
supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience
exhausted. I in sisted on being provided instantly with a place of
refuge and means of repose.

     "Whear the divil?" began the religious elder. "The Lord bless us!
The Lord forgie us! Whear the hell wold ye gang, ye marred, wearisome
nowt? Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er. There's not another
hoile to lig down in i' th' hahsel"

     I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground, and
then seated myself at the stairs-head, hid my face in my hands, and
cried.

     "Ech! ech!" exclaimed Joseph. "Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done,
Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brocken
pots, un then we's hear summut - we's hear how it's to be.
Gooid-for-naught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Churstmas,
flinging t' precious gifts o' God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But
I'm mista'en if ye show yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich
bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I
nobbut wish he may."

     And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle
with him, and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection
succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of
smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to
remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of
Throttler, whom I now recognized as a son of our old Skulker. It had
spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr.
Hindley. I fancy it knew me. It pushed its nose against mine by way of
salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge, while I groped from
step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the
spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief. Our
labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage.
My assistant tucked in his tail and pressed to the wall. I stole into
the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful,
as I guessed by a scutter downstairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping.
I had better luck. He passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door.
Directly after, Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had
found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,--
     "They's rahm for boath ye un yer pride now, I sud think, i' the
hahse. It's empty; ye may hev it all to yerseln, un Him as allas maks a
third i' sich ill company!"

     Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation, and the minute I
flung myself into a chair by the fire I nodded and slept. My slumber was
deep and sweet, though over far too soon. Mr. Heathcliff awoke me. He
had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing
there. I told him the cause of my staying up so late--that he had the
key of our room in his pocket. The adjective our gave mortal offence. He
swore it was not, nor ever should be mine, and he'd -  -  But I'll not
repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct. He is ingenious
and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence. I sometimes wonder at
him with an intensity that deadens my fear; yet I assure you a tiger or
a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he
wakens. He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of
causing it, promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering till
he could get hold of him.

     I do hate him - I am wretched - I have been a fooll Beware of
uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange. I shall expect you
every day. Don't disappoint me.

                                   ISABELLA.


                        CHAPTER XIV.


As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master and informed
him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter
expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire
to see him, with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as
possible, some token of forgiveness by me.

     "Forgiveness!" said Linton. "I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen.
You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say
that I am not angry, but I'm sorry to have lost her - especially as I
can never think she'll be happy. It is out of the question my going to
see her, however; we are eternally divided, and should she really wish
to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the
country."

     "And you won't write her a little note, sir?" I asked imploringly.

     "No," he answered; "it is needless. My communication with
Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not
exist."

     Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly, and all the way from
the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said,
when I repeated it, and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to
console Isabella. I dare say she had been on the watch for me since
morning. I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden
causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back as if afraid of being
observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary,
dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented. I must confess
that if I had been in the young lady's place I would, at least, have
swept the hearth and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already
partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her
pretty face was wan and listless, her hair uncurled --some locks hanging
lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she
had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there.
Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his
pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite
friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that
seemed decent, and I thought he never looked better. So much had
circumstances altered their positions that he would certainly have
struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman, and his wife as a
thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held
out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't
understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard where I went to lay
my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I
had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and
said,-

     "If you have got anything for Isabella - as no doubt you have,
Nelly--give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it. We have no
secrets between us."

     "Oh, I have nothing," I replied, thinking it best to speak the
truth at once. "My master bade me tell his sister that she must not
expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his
love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the
grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his
household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as
nothing could come of keeping it up."

     Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her
seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone near
me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much
as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by
cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed
her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself, and ended by
hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example, and avoid future
interference with his family, for good or evil.

     "Mrs. Linton is now just recovering," I said. "She'll never be like
she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for
her, you'll shun crossing her way again - nay, you'll move out of this
country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you
Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine
Earnshaw as that young lady is different from me. Her appearance is
changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is
compelled, of necessity, to be her companion will only sustain his
affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common
humanity, and a sense of duty."

     "That is quite possible," remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to
seem calm - "quite possible that your master should have nothing but
common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you
imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his duty and humanity? and can
you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave
this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an
interview with her. Consent or refuse, I wil see her! What do you say?"

     "I say, Mr. Heathcliff," I replied, "you must not. You never shall,
through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would
kill her altogether."

     "With your aid that may be avoided," he continued; "and should
there be danger of such an event - should he be the cause of adding a
single trouble more to her existence - why, I think I shall be justified
in going to extremes. I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether
Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss; the fear that she would
restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings:
had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred
that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against
him. You may look incredulous if you please. I never would have banished
him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard
ceased, I would have torn his heart out and drunk his blood! But till
then - if you don't believe me you don't know me - till then I would
have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!"

     "And yet," I interrupted, "you have no scruples in completely
ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration by thrusting yourself into
her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving
her in a new tumult of discord and distress."

     "You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he said. "O Nelly, you
know she has not! You know as well      as I do that for every thought
she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable
period of my life I had a notion of the kind. It haunted me on my return
to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make
me admit the horrible idea again. And then Linton would be nothing, nor
Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would
comprehend my future - death and hell; existence, after losing her,
would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued
Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the
powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I
could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea
could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole
affection be monopolized by him! Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to
her than her dog or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me. How
can she love in him what he has not?"

     "Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people
can be," cried Isabella with sudden vivacity. "No one has a right to
talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in
silencel"

     "Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?" observed
Heathcliff scornfully. "He turns you adrift on the world with surprising
alacrity."

     "He is not aware of what I suffer," she replied. "I didn't tell him
that."

     "You have been telling him something, then. You have written, have
you?"

     "To say that I was married, I did write; you saw the note."

     "And nothing since?"

     "No."

     "My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of
condition," I remarked. "Somebody's love comes short in her case
obviously. Whose, I may guess, but perhaps I shouldn't say."

     "I should guess it was her own," said Heathcliff. She degenerates
into a mere slut. She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early.
You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was
weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better
for not being overnice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by
rambling abroad."

     "Well, sir," returned I, "I hope you'll consider that Mrs.
Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on, and that she
has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to
serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and
you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you
cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she
wouldn't have abandoned the elegances, and comforts, and friends of her
former home to fix contentedly in such a wilderness as this with you."

     "She abandoned them under a delusion," he answered, "picturing in
me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my
chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational
creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion
of my character, and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But
at last I think she begins to know me. I don't perceive the silly smiles
and grimaces that provoked me at first, and the senseless incapability
of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her
infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to
discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons
could teach her that. And yet it is poorly learned, for this morning she
announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually
succeeded in making her hate me--a positive labour of Hercules, I

assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. - Can I
trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you
alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again?
- I dare say she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you; it
wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows
that the passion was wholly on one side; and I never told her a lie
about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness.
The first thing she saw me do on coming out of the Grange was to hang up
her little dog, and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered
were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her,
except one. Possibly she took that exception for herself. But no
brutality disgusted her. I suppose she has an innate admiration of it,
if only her precious person were secure from injury. Now, was it not the
depth of absurdity, of genuine idiocy, for that pitiful, slavish,
mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master,
Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as
she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes
relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she
could endure and still creep shamefully cringing back. But tell him also
to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease; that I keep strictly
within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving
her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd
thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might; the
nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from
tormenting her."

     "Mr. Heathcliff," said I, "this is the talk of a madman. Your wife,
most likely, is convinced you are mad, and for that reason she has borne
with you hitherto; but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless
avail herself of the permission. - You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are
you, as to remain with him of your own accord?"

     "Take care, Ellen!" answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully.
There was no misdoubting, by their expression, the full success of her
partner's endeavours to make himself detested. "Don't put faith in a
single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend - a monster, and not a human
being! I've been told I might leave him before, and I've made the
attempt, but I dare not repeat it. Only, Ellen, promise you'll not
mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or
Catherine. Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to
desperation. He says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over
him; and he shan't obtain it. I'll die first! I just hope - I pray--that
he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me! The single pleasure I
can imagine is to die or to see him dead!"

     "There--that will do for the present!" said Heathcliff. - -"If you
are called upon in a court of law you'll remember her language, Nelly.
And take a good look at that countenance; she's near the point which
would suit me--No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella,
now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody,
however distasteful the obligation may be. Go upstairs; I have something
to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way. Upstairs, I tell
you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child."

     He seized and thrust her from the room, and returned muttering,--
     "I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the
more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I
grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain."

     "Do you understand what the word pity means?" I said, hastening to
resume my bonnet. "Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?"

     "Put that down!" he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart.
"You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly. I must either persuade or
compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine,
and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm. I don't desire
to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton. I only
wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill, and to
ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was
in the Grange garden six hours, and I'Il return there to-night; and
every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an
opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me I shall not hesitate
to knock him down, and give him enough to assure his quiescence while I
stay. If his servants oppose me I shall threaten them off with these
pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact

with them or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you
when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was
alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm. You would
be hindering mischief."

     I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's
house, and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his
destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. "The
commonest occurrence startles her painfully," I said. "She's all nerves,
and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir, or
else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs, and he'll
take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such
unwarrantable intrusions!"

     "In that case, I'll take measures to secure you, woman," exclaimed
Heathcliff. "You shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow
morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear
to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it. You must prepare
her; ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that
I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a
forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her
husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her
silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often
restless and anxious-looking. Is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk
of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her
frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry crea ture attending her
former duty and humanity, from pity and chariry! He might as well plant
an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can
restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares! Let us settle it
at once. Will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over
Linton and his footman? or will you be my friend, as you have been
hitherto, and do what I request? Decide, because there is no reason for
my lingering another minute if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature."

     Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him
fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged
to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I
promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from
home, when he might come, and get in as he was able. I wouldn't be
there, and my fellowservants should be equally out of the way. Was it
right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I
prevented another explosion by my compliance, and I thought, too, it
might create a favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness. And then
I remembered Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales, and I tried
to smooth away all disquietude on the subject by affirming, with
frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh
an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward
was sadder than my journey thither, and many misgivings I had ere I
could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand.

     But here is Kenneth. I'll go down and tell him how much better you
are. My history is dree, as we say, and will serve to while away another
morning.

                         * * * * *

     Dree and dreary, I reflected, as the good woman descended to
receive the doctor, and not exactly of the kind which I should have
chosen to amuse me. But never mind. I'll extract wholesome medicines
from Mrs. Dean's bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware the
fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes. I
should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young
person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother.


                        CHAPTER XV.


Another week over, and I am so many days nearer health and spring! I
have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the
housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I'll
continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the
whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her
style.

     In the evening, she said - the evening of my visit to the Heights -
I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the
place; and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my
pocket, and didn't want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made
up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not
guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was that
it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was
Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to
church. There was a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we
generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of
service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that
I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would
be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for
some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be
paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went upstairs.

     Mrs. Linton sat in a loose, white dress, with a light shawl over
her shoulders, in the recess of the open window as usual. Her thick,
long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and
now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples
and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when
she was calm there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of
her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no
longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her; they
appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond - you would have said out
of this world. Then the paleness of her face - its haggard aspect having
vanished as she recovered flesh - and the peculiar expression arising
from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes,
added to the touching interest which she awakened, and - -invariably to
me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should think - refuted more
tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to
decay.

     A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely
perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had
laid it there, for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading
or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to
entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her
amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured
his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then
suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of
smiles and kisses. At other times she would turn petulantly away, and
hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he
took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good.

     Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing, and the full, mellow
flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a
sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage which
drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At
Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw
or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was
thinking as she listened - that is, if she thought or listened at all;
but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed
no recognition of material things either by ear or eye.

     "There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton," I said, gently inserting
it in one hand that rested on her knee. "You must read it immediately,
because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal?" "Yes," she
answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened it; it
was very short. "Now," I continued, "read it." She drew away her hand,
and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it
should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed
that at last I resumed--
     "Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff."

     There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a
struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to
peruse it, and when she came to the signature she sighed; yet still I
found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her
reply, she merely pointed to the name and gazed at me with mournful and
questioning eagerness.

     "Well, he wishes to see you," said I, guessing her need of an
interpreter. "He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know
what answer I shall bring."

     As I spoke I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath
raise its ears as if about to bark, and then, smoothing them back,
announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not
consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward and listened breathlessly.
The minute after a step traversed the hall. The open house was too
tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in. Most likely he supposed
that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his
own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the
entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room directly. She
motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the
door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his
arms.

     He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during
which period he bestowed more kisses  than ever he gave in his life
before, I dare say; but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I
plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look
into her face. The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the
instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery
there; she was fated, sure to die.

     "O Cathy! O my life! how can I bear it?" was the first sentence he
uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he
stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze
would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish --they did
not melt.

     "What now?" said Catherine, leaning back and returning his look
with a suddenly clouded brow. Her humour was a mere vane for constantly
varying caprices. "You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And
you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be
pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me - and thriven on
it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live
after I am gone?"

     Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her. He attempted to
rise, but she seized his hair and kept him down.

     "I wish I could hold you," she continued bitterly, "till we were
both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your
sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you
be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence,
'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was
wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since. My
children are dearer to me than she was, and at death I shall not rejoice
that I am going to her; I shall be sorry that I must leave them.' Will
you say so, Heathcliff?"

     "Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself," cried he, wrenching
his head free and grinding his teeth.

     The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture.
Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her,
unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her
present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a
bloodless lip and a scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed
fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her
companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm
with the other, and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the
requirements of her condition that on his letting go I saw four distinct
impressions left blue in the colourless skin.

     "Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in
that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those
words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after
you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you; and,
Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is
it not sufficient for your in fernal selfishness that, while you are at
peace, I shall writhe in the torments of hell?"

     "I shall not be at peace," moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of
physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which
beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said
nothing further till the paroxysm was over, then she continued more
kindly,--
     "I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I
only wish us never to be parted; and should a word of mine distress you
hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own
sake forgive me! Come here and kneel down again. You never harmed me in
your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than
my harsh words. Won't you come here again? Do!"

     Heathcliff went to the back of her chair and leant over, but not so
far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent
round to look at him. He would not permit it. Turning abruptly, he
walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards
us. Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously. Every movement woke
a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze she resumed,
addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment,--
     "Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of
the grave! That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my
Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet, and take him with me; he's in my
soul. And," added she musingly, "the thing that irks me most is this
shattered prison, after all. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm
wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there--not
seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of
an aching heart, but really with it and in it. Nelly, you think you are
better and more fortunate than I, in full health and strength. You are
sorry for me. Very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you.
I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I wonder he won't be
near mel" she went on to herself. "I thought he wished it - Heathcliff
dear, you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff."

     In her eagerness she rose nnd supported herself on the arm of the
chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely
desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his
breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how
they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her,
and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress
would never be released alive--in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly
insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my
approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me
and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy.
I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own
species. It appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to
him, so I stood off and held my tongue in great perplexity.

     A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently. She put
up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held
her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said
wildly, -
     "You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did
you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one
word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you
may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; they'll blight
you - they'll damn you. You loved me; then what right had you to leave
me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?
Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or
Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.
I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it
you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I
want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - -- O God! would
you like to live with your soul in the grave?"

     "Let me alone! let me alone!" sobbed Catherine. "If I've done
wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too; but I won't
upbraid you. I forgive you. Forgive me."

     "It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those
wasted hands," he answered. "Kiss me again, and don't let me see your
eyes. I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but
yours! How can I?"

     They were silent - -their faces hid against each other, and washed
by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both
sides, as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.

     I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile, for the afternoon wore fast
away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could
distinguish by the shine of the western sun up the valley a concourse
thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch.

     "Service is over," I announced. "My master will be here in half an
hour."

     Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer. She
never moved.

     Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road
towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind. He opened the
gate himself, and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely
afternoon, that breathed as soft as summer.

     "Now he is here!" I exclaimed. "For Heaven's sake hurry down!
You'll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick, and stay among
the trees till he is fairly in."

     "I must go, Cathy," said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself
from his companion's arms. "But if I live I'll see you again before you
are asleep. I won't stray five yards from your window."

     "You must not go!" she answered, holding him as firmly as her
strength allowed. "You shall not, I tell you."

     "For one hour," he pleaded earnestly.

     "Not for one minute," she replied.

     "I must; Linton will be up immediately," persisted the alarmed
intruder.

     He would have risen and unfixed her fingers by the act; she clung
fast, gasping. There was mad resolution in her face.

     "No!" she shrieked. "Oh, don't, don't go! It is the last time!
Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!"

     "Damn the fool! There he is!" cried Heathcliff, sinking back into
his seat. "Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he
shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips."

     And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the
stairs. The cold sweat ran from my forehead; I was horrified.

     "Are you going to listen to her ravings?" I said passionately. "She
does not know what she says. Will you ruin her because she has not wit
to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most
diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for--master,
mistress, and servant."

     I wrung my hands and cried out, and Mr. Linton hastened his step at
the noise. In the midst of my agitation I was sincerely glad to observe
that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down.

     "She's fainted or dead," I thought; "so much the better. Far better
that she should be dead than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to
all about her."

     Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and
rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell. However, the other stopped all
demonstrations at once by placing the lifeless-looking form in his arms.

     "Look there!" he said. "Unless you be a fiend, help her first; then
you shall speak to me!"

     He walked into the parlour and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me,
and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed
to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered. She sighed and
moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated
friend. I did not. I went at the earliest opportunity and besought him
to depart, affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from
me in the morning how she passed the night.

     "I shall not refuse to go out of doors," he answered, "but I shall
stay in the garden; and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow. I
shall be under those larch trees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether
Linton be in or not."

     He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber,
and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the
house of his luckless presence.

                        CHAPTER XVI.


About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at
Wuthering Heights - a puny seven months' child; and two hours after, the
mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss
Heathcliff or know Edgar. The latter's distraction at his bereavement is
a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after effects showed how deep
the sorrow sank. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left
without an heir. I bemoaned that as I gazed on the feeble orphan, and I
mentally abused old Linton for - what was only natural partiality - the
securing his estate to his own daughter instead of his son's. An
unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life
and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence. We
redeemed the neglect afterwards, but its beginning was as friendless as
its end is likely to be.

     Next morning - bright and cheerful out of doors - stole softened in
through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its
occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on
the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair features were almost
as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed; but
his was the hush of exhausted anguish, and hers of perfect peace. Her
brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile
- no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. And I
partook of the infinite calm in which she lay. My mind was never in a
holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine
rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours
before. "Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or
now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!"

     I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom
otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no
frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose
that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the
endless and shadowless hereafter - the eternity they have entered -
where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and
joy in its fullness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness
there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted
Catherine's blessed release. To be sure, one might have doubted, after
the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a
haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection,
but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own
tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former
inhabitants.

     Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd
give a great deal to know.

     I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as
something heterodox. She proceeded, -

     Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right
to think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker.

     The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit
the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought
me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality,
my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the
larches all night he would have heard nothing of the stir at the
Grange--unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger
going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer he would probably be aware,
from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the
outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished yet feared to find
him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over;
but how to do it I did not know. He was there --at least a few yards
farther in the park - leant against an old ash tree, his hat off, and
his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches,
and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that
position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely
three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his
proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my
approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke.

     "She's dead!" he said. "I've not waited for you to learn that. Put
your handkerchief away; don't snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants
none of your tears!"

     I was weeping as much for him as her; we do sometimes pity
creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others.
When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got
intelligence of the catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his
heart was quelled, and he prayed, because his lips moved, and his gaze
was bent on the ground.

     "Yes, she's dead!" I answered, checking my sobs and drying my
cheeks - "gone to heaven, I hope, where we may, every one, join her, if
we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good!"

     "Did she take due warning, then?" asked Heathcliff, attempting a
sneer. "Did she die like a saint? Come, give me a true history of the
event. How did -  - "

     He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and
compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony,
defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching ferocious stare.
"How did she die?" he resumed at last, fain, notwithstanding his
hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he
trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.

     "Poor wretch!" I thought, "you have a heart and nerves the same as
your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride
cannot blind God. You tempt Him to wring them till He forces a cry of
humiliation."

     "Quietly as a lamb!" I answered aloud. "She drew a sigh, and
stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep;
and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing
more!"

     "And - did she ever mention me?" he asked, hesitating, as if he
dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could
not bear to hear.

     "Her senses never returned. She recognized nobody from the time you
left her," I said. "She lies with a sweet smile on her face, and her
latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a
gentle dream. May she wake as kindly in the other world!"

     "May she wake in torment!" he cried with frightful vehemence,
stamping his foot and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable
passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end. Where is she? Not there--not in
heaven --not perished - where? - Oh! you said you cared nothing for my
sufferings! And I pray one prayer - I repeat it till my tongue stiffens
- Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said
I killed you - haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I
believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always -
-take any form
 - drive me mad - only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot
find you! O God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I
cannot live without my soul!"

     He dashed his head against the knotted trunk, and, lifting up his
eyes, howled - not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to
death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about
the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained;
probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during
the night. It hardly moved my compassion--it appalled me; still I felt
reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough
to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I
obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console.

     Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday
following her decease, and till then her coffin remained uncovered and
strewn with flowers and scented leaves in the great drawing-room. Linton
spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and - -    a
circumstance concealed from all but me - Heathcliff spent his nights, at
least, outside, equally a stranger to repose. I held no communication
with him. Still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could;
and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer
fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and
opened one of the windows, moved by his perseverance to give him a
chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He
did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly
- too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed,
I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the
disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for
observing on the floor a curl of light hair fastened with a silver
thread, which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a
locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket
and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I
twisted the two, and enclosed them together.

     Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his
sister to the grave. He sent no excuse, but he never came; so that,
besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and
servants. Isabella was not asked.

     The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the
villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the
Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations outside. It was dug
on a green slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where the wall is so low
that heath and bilberry plants have climbed over it from the moor, and
peat mould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now, and
they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain gray block at their
feet, to mark the graves.

                        CHAPTER XVII.


That Friday made the last of our fine days for a month. In the evening
the weather broke; the wind shifted from south to north-east, and
brought rain first, and then sleet and snow. On the morrow one could
hardly imagine that there had been three weeks of summer - the primroses
and crocuses were hidden under windy drifts, the larks were silent, the
young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened. And dreary, and
chill, and dismal, that morrow did creep over! My master kept his room;
I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery,
and there I was, sitting with the moaning doll of a child laid on    my
knee, rocking it to and fro, and watching, meanwhile, the still driving
flakes build up the uncurtained window, when the door opened, and some
person entered, out of breath and laughing. My anger was greater than my
astonishment for a minute. I supposed it one of the maids, and I
cried,--
     "Have done! How dare you show your giddiness here? What would Mr.
Linton say if he heard you?"

     "Excuse me," answered a familiar voice; "but I know Edgar is in
bed, and I cannot stop myself."

     With that the speaker came forward to the fire, panting and holding
her hand to her side.

     "I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights," she continued,
after a pause, "except where I've flown. I couldn't count the number
of falls I've had. Oh, I'm aching all over! Don't be alarmed! There
shall be an explanation as soon as I can give it, only just have the
goodness to step out and order the carriage to take me on to Gimmerton,
and tell a servant to seek up a few clothes in my wardrobe."

     The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff. She certainly seemed in no
laughing predicament. Her hair streamed on her shoulders, dripping with
snow and water; she was dressed in the girlish dress she commonly wore,
befitting her age more than her position - a low frock with short
sleeves, and nothing on either head or neck. The frock was of light
silk, and clung to her with wet, and her feet were protected merely by
thin slippers; add to this a deep cut under one ear, which only the cold
prevented from bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised,
and a frame hardly able to support itself, through fatigue, and you may
fancy my first fright was not much allayed when I had had leisure to
examine her.

     "My dear young lady," I exclaimed, "I'll stir nowhere, and hear
nothing, till you have removed every article of your clothes, and put on
dry things; and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton to-night, so it
is needless to order the carriage."

     "Certainly I shall," she said - "walking or riding. Yet I've no
objection to dress myself decently. And--Ah, see how it flows down my
neck now! The fire does make it smart."

     She insisted on my fulfilling her directions before she would let
me touch her; and not till after the coachman had been instructed to get
ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did I obtain her
consent for binding the wound, and helping to change her garments.

     "Now, Ellen," she said, when my task was finished and she was
seated in an easy-chair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before her,
"you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine's baby away. I don't
like to see it. You mustn't think I care little for Catherine because I
behaved so foolishly on entering. I've cried, too, bitterly--yes, more
than any one else has reason to cry. We parted unreconciled, you
remember, and I shan't forgive myself. But, for all that, I was not
going to sympathize with him - the brute beast! Oh, give me the poker!
This is the last thing of his I have about me." She slipped the gold
ring from her third finger, and threw it on the floor. "I'll smash it!"
she continued, striking it with childish spite, "and then I'll burn itl"
And she took and dropped the misused article among the coals. "There! he
shall buy another if he gets me back again. He'd be capable of coming to
seek me, to tease Edgar. I dare not stay, lest that notion should
possess his wicked head! And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he?
And I won't come suing for his assistance, nor will I bring him into
more trouble. Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here, though, if I
had not learned he was out of the way, I'd have halted at the kitchen,
washed my face, warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and
departed again to anywhere out of the reach of my accursed - off that
incarnate goblin! Ah, he was in such a fury! If he had caught me! It's a
pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength. I wouldn't have run till I'd
seen him all but demolished, had Hindley been able to do it."

     "Well, don't talk so fast, miss," I interrupted; "you'll disorder
the handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed
again. Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing; laughter
is sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!"

     "An undeniable truth," she replied. "Listen to that child! It
maintains a constant wail. Send it out of my hearng for an hour; I
shan't stay any longer."

     I rang the bell and committed it to a servant's care, and then I
inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an
unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining
with us.

     "I ought and I wish to remain," answered she - "to cheer Edgar and
take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my
right home. But I tell you he wouldn't let me. Do you think he could
bear to see me grow fat and merry, could bear to think that we were
tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort? Now, I have the
satisfaction of being sure that he detests me to the point of its
annoying him seriously to have me within earshot or eyesight. I notice,
when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are

involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred, partly arising
from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for
him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me
feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England supposing I
contrived a clear escape, and therefore I must get quite away. I've
recovered from my first desire to be killed by him; I'd rather he'd kill
himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I'm at my ease.
I can recollect yet how I loved him, and can dimly imagine that I could
still be loving him, if - no, no! Even if he had doted on me, the
devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow. Catherine had
an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well.
Monster! Would that he could be blotted out of creation and out of my
memory!"

     "Hush, hush! He's a human being," I said. "Be more charitable.
There are worse men than he is yet."

     "He's not a human being," she retorted, "and he has no claim on my
charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and
flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen; and since he
has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him, and I would not,
though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood
for Catherine! No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn't!" And here Isabella began
to cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she
recommenced. "You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I was
compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a
pitch above his malignity. Pulling out the nerves with redhot pincers
requires more coolness than knocking on the head. He was worked up to
forget the fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous
violence. I experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him; the
sense of pleasure woke my instinct of selfpreservation, so I fairly
broke free; and if ever I come into his hands again, he is welcome to a
signal revenge.

     "Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral.
He kept himself sober for the purpose, tolerably sober - not going to
bed mad at six o'clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he
rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance; and
instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by
tumblerfuls.

     "Heathcliff - I shudder to name him!--has been a stranger in the
house from last Sunday till to-day. Whether the angels have fed him, or
his kin beneath, I cannot tell; but he has not eaten a meal with us for
nearly a week. He has just come home at dawn, and gone upstairs to his
chamber, locking himself in - as if anybody dreamt of coveting his
company! There he has continued, praying like a Methodist - only the
deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed,
was curiously confounded with his own black father! After concluding
these precious orisons --and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse
and his voice was strangled in his throat--he would be off again, always
straight down to the Grange! I wonder Edgar did not send for a
constable, and give him into custody. For me, grieved as I was about
Catherine, it was impossible to avoid regarding this season of
deliverance from degrading oppression as a holiday.

     "I recovered spirits sufficient to hear Joseph's eternal lectures
without weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot of
a frightened thief than formerly. You wouldn't think that I should cry
at anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable
companions. I'd rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than
with 't' little maister' and his stanch supporter, that odious old man!
When Heathcliff is in, I'm often obliged to seek the kitchen and their
society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers. When he is not,
as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner
of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself;
and he does not interfere with my arrangements. He is quieter now than
he used to be, if no one provokes him - more sullen and depressed and
less furious. Joseph affirms he's sure he's an altered man, that the
Lord has touched his heart, and he is saved 'so as by fire.' I'm puzzled
to detect signs of the favourble change; but it is not my business.

     "Yester-evening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late
on towards twelve. It seemed so dismal to go upstairs, with the wild
snow blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the
kirkyard and the new-made grave. I dared hardly lift my eyes from the
page before me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place.
Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand, perhaps meditating
on the same subject. He had ceased drinking at a point below
irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three
hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which
shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals,
and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of
the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was
very, very sad; and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy
had vanished from the world, never to be restored.

     "The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the
kitchen latch. Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than
usual, owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm. That entrance was
fastened, and we heard him coming round to get in by the other. I rose
with an irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which
induced my companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and
look at me.

     " 'I'll keep him out five minutes,' he exclaimed. 'You won't
object?'

     " 'No; you may keep him out the whole night for me,' I answered.
'Do; put the key in the lock, and draw the bolts.'

     "Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front. He
then came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning
over it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate
that gleamed from his. As he both looked and felt like an assassin, he
couldn't exactly find that; but he discovered enough to encourage him to
speak.

     " 'You and I,' he said, 'have each a great debt to settle with the
man out yonder. If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to
discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to endure
to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?'

     " 'I'm weary of enduring now,' I replied, 'and I'd be glad of a
retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself; but treachery and violence
are spears pointed at both ends. They wound those who resort to them
worse than their enemies.'

     " 'Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and
violence!' cried Hindley. 'Mrs. Heathcliff, I'll ask you to do nothing
but sit still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I'm sure you would have
as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend's
existence. He'll be your death unless you overreach him; and he'll be my
ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were
master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock
strikes - it wants three minutes of one - you're a free woman!'

     "He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from
his breast, and would have turned down the candle. I snatched it away,
however, and seized his arm.

     " 'I'll not hold my tongue,' I said; 'you mustn't touch him. Let
the door remain shut, and be quiet.'

     " 'No! I've formed my resolution, and by God I'll execute it!'
cried the desperate being. 'I'll do you a kindness in spite of yourself,
and Hareton justice! And you needn't trouble your head to screen me;
Catherine is gone. Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I
cut my throat this minute; and it's time to make an end!'

     "I might as well have struggled with a bear or reasoned with a
lunatic. The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his
intended victim of the fate which awaited him.

     " 'You'd better seek shelter somewhere else to-night,' I exclaimed,
in rather a triumphant tone. 'Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if
you resist in endeavouring to enter.'

     " 'You'd better open the door, you - --,' be answered, addressing
me by some elegant term that I don't care to repeat.

     " 'I shall not meddle in the matter,' I retorted again. 'Come in
and get shot, if you please. I've done my duty.'

     "With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire,
having too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any
anxiety for the danger that menaced him. Earnshaw swore passionately
at me, affirming that I loved the villain yet, and calling me all sorts
of names for the base spirit I evinced. And I, in my secret heart (and
conscience never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for
him should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing for me
should he send Heathcliff to his right abode! As I sat nursing these
reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow
from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly
through. The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to
follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His hair and
clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed
by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark.

     " 'Isabella, let me in, or I'll make you repent!' he 'girned,' as
Joseph calls it.

     " 'I cannot commit murder,' I replied. 'Mr. Hindley stands sentinel
with a knife and loaded pistol.'

     " 'Let me in by the kitchen door,' he said.

     " 'Hindley will be there before me,' I answered; 'and that's a poor
love of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow! We were left at peace
in our beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of
winter returns, you must run for shelterl Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd
go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world
is surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly impressed
on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life. I can't
imagine how you think of surviving her loss.'

     " 'He's there, is he?' exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap.
'If I can get my arm out I can hit him!'

     "I'm afraid, Ellen, you'll set me down as really wicked; but you
don't know all, so don't judge. I wouldn't have aided or abetted an
attempt on even his life for anything. Wish that he were dead, I must;
and therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for
the consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on
Earnshaw's weapon and wrenched it from his grasp.

     "The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into
its owner's wrist. Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up
the flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket. He
then took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and
sprang in. His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and
the flow of blood that gushed from an artery or a large vein. The
ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly
against the flags, holding me with one hand meantime to prevent me
summoning Joseph. He exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from
finishing him completely; but getting out of breath he finally desisted,
and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle. There he
tore off the sleeve of Earnshaw's coat, and bound up the wound with
brutal roughness, spitting and cursing during the operation as
energetically as he had kicked before. Being at liberty, I lost no time
in seeking the old servant, who, having gathered by degrees the purport
of my hasty tale, hurried below, gasping as he descended the steps two
at once.

     " 'What is ther to do now - what is ther to do now?'

     " 'There's this to do,' thundered Heathcliff, 'that your master's
mad; and should he last another month, I'll have him to an asylum. And
how the devil did you come to fasten me out, you toothless hound? Don't
stand muttering and mumbling there. Come, I'm not going to nurse him.
Wash that stuff away; and mind the sparks of your candle - it is more
than half brandy.'

     " 'And so ye've been murthering on him!' exclaimed Joseph, lifting
his hands and eyes in horror. 'If iver I seed a seeght loike this! May
the Lord - --'

     "Heathcliff gave him a push on to his knees in the middle of the
blood, and flung a towel to him; but instead of proceeding to dry it up,
he joined his hands and began a prayer, which excited my laughter from
its odd phraseology. I was in the condition of mind to be shocked at
nothing; in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors show themselves
at the foot of the gallows.

     " 'Oh, I forgot you,' said the tyrant. 'You shall do that. Down
with you! And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper? There,
that is work fit for you!"

     "He shook me till my teeth rattled, and pitched me beside Joseph,
who steadily concluded his supplications, and then rose, vowing he would
set off for the Grange directly. Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and though
he had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this. He was so
obstinate in his resolution that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to
compel from my lips a recapitulation of what had taken place, standing
over me, heaving with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the
account in answer to his questions. It required a great deal of labour
to satisfy the old man that Heathcliff was not the aggressor, especially
with my hardly-wrung replies. However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him
that he was alive still. Joseph hastened to administer a dose of
spirits, and by their succour his master presently regained motion and
consciousness. Heathcliiff, aware that his opponent was ignorant of the
treatment received while insensible, called him deliriously intoxicated,
and said he should not notice his atrocious conduct further, but advised
him to get to bed. To my joy, he left us, after giving this judicious
counsel, and Hindley stretched himself on the hearthstone. I departed to
my own room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily.

     "This morning when I came down, about half an hour before noon, Mr.
Earnshaw was sitting by the fire deadly sick. His evil genius, almost as
gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney. Neither appeared

inclined to dine; and, having waited till all was cold on the table, I
commenced alone. Nothing hindered me from eating heartily, and I
experienced a certain sense of satisfaction and superiority as, at
intervals, I cast a look towards my silent companions, and felt the
comfort of a quiet conscience within me. After I had done, I ventured on
the unusual liberty of drawing near the fire, going round Earnshaw's
seat, and kneeling in the corner beside him.

     "Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated
his features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone.
His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so
diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly
quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet
then; his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an
expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have
covered my face in the presence of such grief. In his case, I was
gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't
miss this chance of sticking in a dart. His weakness was the only time
when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong."

     "Fie, fie, miss!" I interrupted. "One might suppose you had never
opened a Bible in your life. If God afflict your enemies, surely that
ought to suffice you. It is both mean and presumptuous to add your
torture to His."

     "In general I'll allow that it would be, Ellen," she continued;
"but what misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a
hand in it? I'd rather he suffered less, if I might cause his
sufferings, and he might know that I was the cause. Oh, I owe him so
much! On only one condition can I hope to forgive him. It is, if I may
take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, for every wrench of agony
return a wrench, reduce him to my level; as he was the first to injure,
make him the first to implore pardon; and then--why, then, Ellen, I
might show you some generosity. But it is utterly impossible I can ever
be revenged, and therefore I cannot forgive him. Hindley wanted some
water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was.

     " 'Not as ill as I wish,' he replied. 'But leaving out my arm,
every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of
imps.'

     " 'Yes, no wonder,' was my next remark. 'Catherine used to boast
that she stood between you and bodily harm. She meant that certain
persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It's well people
don't really rise from their grave, or last night she might have
witnessed a repulsive scene! Are not you bruised and cut over your chest
and shoulders?'

     " 'I can't say,' he answered; 'but what do you mean? Did he dare to
strike me when I was down?'

     " 'He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,' I
whispered. 'And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth, because
he's only half man--not so much - and the rest fiend.'

     "Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual
foe, who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around
him. The longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their
blackness through his features.

     " 'Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last
agony, I'd go to hell with joy,' groaned the impatient man, writhing to
rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the
struggle.

     " 'Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you,' I observed
aloud. 'At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been
living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff. After all, it is
preferable to be hated than loved by him. When I recollect how happy we
were, how happy Catherine was before he came, I'm fit to curse the day.'

     "Most likely Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said
than the spirit of the person who said it. His attention was roused, I
saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his
breath in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed
scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the
fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that
I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision.

     " 'Get up, and begone out of my sight,' said the mourner.

     "I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was
hardly intelligible.

     " 'I beg your pardon,' I replied. 'But I loved Catherine too; and
her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply.
Now that she's dead, I see her in Hindley. Hindley has exactly her eyes,
if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and
her - '

     " 'Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!' he cried,
making a movement that caused me to make one also.

     " 'But, then,' I continued, holding myself ready to flee, 'if poor
Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible,
degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a
similar picture. She wouldn't have borne your abominable behaviour
quietly. Her detestation and disgust must have found voice.'

     "The back of the settle and Earnshaw's person interposed between me
and him; so instead of endeavouring to reach me, he snatched a dinner
knife from the table and flung it at my head. It struck beneath my ear,
and stopped the sentence I was uttering; but, pulling it out, I sprang
to the door and delivered another, which I hope went a little deeper
than his missile. The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush
on his part, checked by the embrace of his host; and both fell locked
together on the hearth. In my flight through the kitchen I bade Joseph
speed to his master. I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of
puppies from a chair-back in the doorway; and, blest as a soul escaped
from purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road; then,
quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks,
and wading through marshes, precipitating myself, in fact, towards the
beacon light of the Grange. And far rather would I be condemned to a
perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night,
abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again."

     Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea; then she rose,
and bidding me put on her bonnet and a great shawl I had brought, and
turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she
stepped on to a chair, kissed Edgar's and Catherine's portraits,
bestowed a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage,
accompanied by Fanny, who yelped wild with joy at recovering her
mistress. She was driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood; but
a regular correspondence was established between her and my master when
things were more settled. I believe her new abode was in the south, near
London; there she had a son born, a few months subsequent to her escape.
He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an
ailing, peevish creature.

     Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where
she lived. I refused to tell. He remarked that it was not of any moment,
only she must beware of coming to her brother. She should not be with
him, if he had to keep her himself. Though I would give no information,
he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of
residence and the existence of the child. Still he didn't molest her,
for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose. He often
asked about the infant, when he saw me; and on hearing its name, smiled
grimly, and observed--
     "They wish me to hate it too, do they?"

     "I don't think they wish you to know anything about it," I
answered.

     "But I'll have it," he said, "when I want it. They may reckon on
that."

     Fortunately its mother died before the time arrived, some thirteen
years after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve or a little
more.

     On the day succeeding Isabella's unexpected visit, I had no
opportunity of speaking to my master. He shunned conversation, and was
fit for discussing nothing. When I could get him to listen, I saw it
pleased him that his sister had left her husband, whom he abhorred with
an intensity which the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to
allow. So deep and sensitive was his aversion that he refrained from
going anywhere where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff. Grief
and that together transformed him into a complete hermit. He threw up
his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the
village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within
the limits of his park and grounds, only varied by solitary rambles on
the moors and visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or
early morning before other wanderers were abroad. But he was too good to
be thoroughly unhappy long. He didn't pray for Catherine's soul to haunt
him. Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.
He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to
the better world, where he doubted not she was gone.

     And he had earthly consolation and affections also. For a few days,
I said, he seemed regardless of the puny successor to the departed; that
coldness melted as fast as snow in April, and ere the tiny thing could
stammer a word or totter a step, it wielded a despot's sceptre in his
heart. It was named Catherine; but he never called it the name in full,
as he had never called the first Catherine short, probably because
Heathcliff had a habit of doing so. The little one was always Cathy; it
formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with
her; and his attachment sprang from its relation to her far more than
from its being his own.

     I used to draw a comparison between him and Hindley Earnshaw, and
perplex myself to explain satisfactorily why their conduct was so
opposite in similar cir cumstances. They had both been fond husbands,
and were both attached to their children; and I could not see how they
shouldn't both have taken the same road, for good or evil. But, I
thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has
shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man. When his ship struck,
the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save
her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless
vessel. Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal
and faithful soul. He trusted God, and God comforted him. One hoped, and
the other despaired. They chose their own lots, and were righteously
doomed to endure them. But you'll not want to hear my moralizing, Mr.
Lockwood; you'll judge as well as I can all these things. At least,
you'll think you will, and that's the same. The end of Earnshaw was what
might have been expected; it followed fast on his sister's; there were
scarcely six months between them. We at the Grange never got a very
succinct account of his state preceding it; all that I did learn was on
occasion of going to aid in the preparations for the funeral. Mr.
Kenneth came to announce the event to my master.

     "Well, Nelly," said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early
not to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, "it's yours
and my turn to go into mourning at present. Who's given us the slip now,
do you think?"

     "Who?" I asked in a flurry.

     "Why, guess," he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on
a hook by the door. "And nip up the corner of your apron. I'm certain
you'll need it."

     "Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?" I exclaimed.

     "What! would you have tears for him?" said the doctor. "No,
Heathcliff's a tough young fellow; he looks blooming to-day. I've just
seen him. He's rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his better half."

     "Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth?" I repeated impatiently.

     "Hindley Earnshaw--your old friend Hindley," he replied, "and my
wicked gossip, though he's been too wild for me this long while. There!
I said we should draw water. But cheer up. He died true to his character
--drunk as a lord. Poor lad! I'm sorry, too. One can't help missing an
old companion, though he had the worst tricks with him that ever man
imagined, and has done me many a rascally turn. He's barely
twenty-seven, it seems; that's your own age. Who would have thought you
were born in one year?"

     I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs.
Linton's death. Ancient associations lingered round my heart. I sat down
in the porch and wept as for a blood relation, desiring Mr. Kenneth to
get another servant to introduce him to the master. I could not hinder
myself from pondering on the question, "Had he had fair play?" Whatever
I did, that idea would bother me. It was so tiresomely pertinacious
that I resolved on requesting leave to go to Wuthering Heights and
assist in the last duties to the dead. Mr. Linton was extremely
reluctant to consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless
condition in which he lay, and I said my old master and foster-brother
had a claim on my services as strong as his own. Besides, I reminded him
that the child Hareton was his wife's nephew, and, in the absence of
nearer kin, he ought to act as its guardian; and he ought to and must
inquire how the property was left, and look over the concerns of his
brother-in-law. He was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he
bade me speak to his lawyer, and at length permitted me to go. His
lawyer had been Earnshaw's also. I called at the village, and asked him
to accompany me. He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should
be let alone, affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found
little else than a beggar.

     "His father died in debt," he said; "the whole property is
mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an
opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he
may be inclined to deal leniently towards him."

     When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see
everything carried on decently; and Joseph, who appeared in sufficient
distress, expressed satisfaction at my presence. Mr. Heathcliff said he
did not perceive that I was wanted; but I might stay and order the
arrangements for the funeral, if I chose.

     "Correctly," he remarked, "that fool's body should be buried at the
cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten
minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two
doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking
himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard
him snorting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle;
flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and
he came, but not till the beast had changed into carrion. He was both
dead and cold and stark; and so you'll allow it was useless making more
stir about him."

     The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered,--
     "I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor! I sud ha' taen tent
o' t' maister better nor him; and he warn't deead when I left, naught o'
t' soart!"

     I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I
might have my own way there too; only, he desired me to remember that
the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket. He maintained a
hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow; if
anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult
work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like
exultation in his aspect; it was just when the people were bearing the
coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner; and
previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on
to the table, and muttered, with peculiar gusto, "Now, my bonny lad,
you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as
another, with the same wind to twist it!" The unsuspecting thing was
pleased at this speech. He played with Heathcliff's whiskers, and
stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, "That
boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in
the world less yours than he is."

     "Does Linton say so?" he demanded.

     "Of course; he has ordered me to take him," I replied.

     "Well," said the scoundrel, "we'll not argue the subject now; but I
have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one, so intimate to your
master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt
to remove it. I don't engage to let Hareton go undisputed, but I'll be
pretty sure to make the other come! Remember to tell him."

     This hint was enough to bind our hands. I repeated its substance on
my return; and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement,
spoke no more of interfering. I'm not aware that he could have done it
to any purpose, had he been ever so willing.

     The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights. He held firm
possession, and proved to the attorney-who, in his turn, proved it to
Mr. Linton - that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for
cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the
mortgagee. In that manner Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman
in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on
his father's inveterate enemy, and lives in his own house as a servant,
deprived of the advantage of wages, quite unable to right himself,
because of his friendlessness and his ignorance that he has been
wronged.

                        CHAPTER XVIII.


The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were
the happiest of my life. My greatest troubles in their passage rose from
our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in
common with all children, rich and poor. For the rest, after the first
six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her
own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's
dust. She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a
desolate house--a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark
eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features and yellow curling
hair. Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart
sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. That capacity for
intense attachments reminded me of her mother. Still she did not
resemble her, for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a
gentle voice and pensive expression. Her anger was never furious, her
love never fierce. It was deep and tender. However, it must be
acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts. A propensity to be saucy
was one; and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire,
whether they be good-tempered or cross. If a servant chanced to vex her,
it was always, "I shall tell papa!" And if he reproved her, even by a
look, you would have thought it a heart-breaking business. I don't
believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her. He took her education
entirely on himself, and made it an amusement. Fortunately, curiosity
and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar. She learned rapidly and
eagerly, and did honour to his teaching.

     Till she reached the age of thirteen, she had not once been beyond
the range of the park by herself. Mr. Linton would take her with him a
mile or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one
else. Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel the
only building she had approached or entered, except her own home.
Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her. She was a
perfect recluse, and, apparently, perfectly contented. Sometimes,
indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would
observe,--
     "Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those
hills? I wonder what lies on the other side. Is it the sea?"

     "No, Miss Cathy," I would answer; "it is hills again, just like
these."

     "And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?"
she once asked.

     The abrupt descent of Peniston Crags particularly attracted her
notice, especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost
heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow. I
explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth
in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree.

     "And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?" she
pursued.

     "Because they are a great deal higher up than we are," replied I;
"you could not climb them - they are too high and steep. In winter the
frost is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have
found snow under that black hollow on the north-east side."

     "Oh, you have been on them!" she cried gleefully. "Then I can go,
too, when I am a woman. Has papa been, Ellen?"

     "Papa would tell you, miss," I answered hastily, "that they are not
worth the trouble of visiting. The moors, where you ramble with him, are
much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world."

     "But I know the park, and I don't know those," she murmured to
herself. "And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that
tallest point. My little pony Minny shall take me some time."

     One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave quite turned her head
with a desire to fulfil this project. She teased Mr. Linton about it,
and he promised she should have the journey when she got older. But Miss
Catherine measured her age by months, and, "Now, am I old enough to go
to Peniston Crags?" was the constant question in her mouth. The road
thither wound close by Wuthering Heights. Edgar had not the heart to
pass it, so she received as constantly the answer, "Not yet, love; not
yet."

     I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her
husband. Her family were of a delicate constitution. She and Edgar both
lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts.
What her last illness was I am not certain. I conjecture they died of
the same thing - a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but
incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close. She wrote to
inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a four months'
indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to
her, if possible, for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him
adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands. Her hope was, that
Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her. His father, she
would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his
maintenance or education. My master hesitated not a moment in complying
with her request. Reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls,
he flew to answer this, commending Catherine to my peculiar vigilance,
in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of
the park, even under my escort. He did not calculate on her going
unaccompanied.

     He was away three weeks. The first day or two my charge sat in a
corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing. In that
quiet state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an
interval of impatient fretful weariness; and being too busy and too
old then to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she
might entertain herself. I used to send her on her travels round the
grounds, now on foot and now on a pony, indulging her with a patient
audience of all her real and imaginary adventures, when she returned.

     The summer shone in full prime, and she took such a taste for this
solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast
till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful
tales. I did not fear her breaking bounds, because the gates were
generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone,
if they had stood wide open. Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced.
Catherine came to me one morning at eight o'clock, and said she was that
day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the desert with his caravan, and
I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts - a horse and
three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers. I
got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one
side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by
her wide-brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off
with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping and
come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One
traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned;
but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in
any direction. I dispatched emissaries down this path and that path, and
at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer
working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds. I
inquired of him if he had seen our young lady.

     "I saw her at morn," he replied. "She would have me to cut her a
hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder,
where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight."

     You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me
directly she must have started for Peniston Crags. "What will become of
her?" I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing,
and making straight to the highroad. I walked as if for a wager, mile
after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no
Catherine could I detect far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a
half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so
I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. "And what if
she should have slipped in clambering among them," I reflected, "and
been killed or broken some of her bones?" My suspense was truly painful;
and at first it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the
farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window,
with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the
door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who
formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered. She had been servant there since
the death of Mr. Earnshaw.

     "Ah," said she, "you are come a-seeking your little mistress! Don't
be frightened. She's here safe; but I'm glad it isn't the master."

     "He is not at home, then, is he?" I panted, quite breathless with
quick walking and alarm.

     "No, no," she replied; "both he and Joseph are off, and I think
they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit."

     I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking
herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her
hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home,
laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton -
now a great, strong lad of eighteen - who stared at her with
considerable curiosity and astonishment, comprehending precious little
of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never
ceased pouring forth.

     "Very well, miss!" I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry
countenance. "This is your last ride till papa comes back. I'll not
trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!"

     "Aha, Ellenl" she cried gaily, jumping up and running to my side.
"I shall have a pretty story to tell tonight. And so you've found me
out. Have you ever been here in your life before?"

     "Put that hat on, and home at once," said I. "I'm dreadfully
grieved at you, Miss Cathy; you've done extremely wrong. It's no use
pouting and crying; that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the
country after you. To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in;
and you stealing off so! It shows you are a cunning little fox, and
nobody will put faith in you any more."

     "What have I done?" sobbed she, instantly checked. "Papa charged me
nothing. He'll not scold me, Ellen; he's never cross like you."

     "Come, come!" I repeated. "I'll tie the ribbon. Now, let us have no
petulance. Oh, for shame! You thirteen years old, and such a baby!"

     This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head,
and retreating to the chimney out of my reach.

     "Nay," said the servant; "don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs.
Dean. We made her stop. She'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you
should be uneasy. Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he
should. It's a wild road over the hills."

     Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his
pockets, too awkward to speak, though he looked as if he did not relish
my intrusion.

     "How long am I to wait?" I continued, disregarding the woman's
interference. "It will be dark in ten minutes.--Where is the pony, Miss
Cathy? And where is Phoenix? I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so
please yourself."

     "The pony is in the yard," she replied, "and Phoenix is shut in
there. He's bitten, and so is Charlie. I was going to tell you all about
it; but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear."

     I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving
that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round
the room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and
behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue. Hareton
and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent
still, till I cried, in great irritation,--
     "Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is, you'd be
glad enough to get out."

     "It's your father's, isn't it?" said she, turning to Hareton.

     "Nay," he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully.

     He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were
just his own.

     "Whose, then - your master's?" she asked.

     He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and
turned away.

     "Who is his master?" continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me.
"He talked about 'our house,' and 'our folk.' I thought he had been the
owner's son. And he never said miss. He should have done, shouldn't he,
if he's a servant?"

     Hareton grew black as a thunder-cloud at this childish speech. I
silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for
departure.

     "Now, get my horse," she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as
she would one of the stable-boys at the Grange. "And you may come with
me. I want to see where the goblin-hunter rises in the marsh, and to
hear about the fairishes, as you call them. But make haste! What's the
matter? Get my horse, I say."

     "I'll see thee damned before I be thy servant!" growled the lad.

     "You'll see me what?" asked Catherine in surprise.

     "Damned, thou saucy witch!" he replied.

     "There, Miss Cathy, you see you have got into pretty company," I
interposed. "Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin
to dispute with him. Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone."

     "But, Ellen," cried she, staring, fixed in astonishment, "how dare
he speak so to me? Mustn't he be made to do as I ask him? - You wicked
creature, I shall tell papa what you said. Now, then!"

     Hareton did not appear to feel this threat, so the tears sprang
into her eyes with indignation. "You bring the pony," she exclaimed,
turning to the woman, "and let my dog free this moment!"

     "Softly, miss," answered she addressed; "you'll lose nothing by
being civil. Though Mr. Hareton there be not the master's son, he's your
cousin; and I was never hired to serve you."

     "He my cousin!" cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.

     "Yes, indeed," responded her reprover.

     "O Ellen! don't let them say such things," she pursued, in great
trouble. "Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London. My cousin is a
gentleman's son. That my -  - " She stopped, and wept outright, upset at
the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.

     "Hush, hush!" I whispered; "people can have many cousins, and of
all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they
needn't keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad."

     "He's not - he's not my cousin, Ellenl" she went on, gathering
fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for
refuge from the idea.

     I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual
revelations, having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival,
communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff, and
feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's
return would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion
concerning her rude-bred kindred. Hareton, recovering from his disgust
at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and having
fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine
crooked-legged terrier-whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her
hand bade her whist, for he meant nought. Pausing in her lamentations,
she surveyed him a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew.

     I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor
fellow, who was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features,
and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily
occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after
rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a
mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed--good things
lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far
overtopped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a
wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and
favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him
physically ill

 - thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that
course of oppression. He had none of the timid susceptibility that would
have given zest to illtreatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared
to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute. He was never taught
to read or write, never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy
his keeper, never led a single step towards virtue or guarded by a
single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed
much to his deterioration by a narrowminded partiality which prompted
him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old
family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw
and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience,
and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their
"offalld ways," so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's
faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property. If the lad
swore, he wouldn't correct him, nor however culpably he behaved. It gave
Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths. He
allowed that the lad was ruined, that his soul was abandoned to
perdition; but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it.
Hareton's blood would be required at his hands; and there lay immense
consolation in that thought. Joseph had instilled into him a pride of
name and of his lineage. He would, had he dared, have fostered hate
between him and the present owner of the Heights; but his dread of that
owner amounted to superstition, and he confined his feelings regarding
him to muttered innuendoes and private com minations. I don't pretend
to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those
days at Wuthering Heights. I only speak from hearsay, for I saw little.
The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was near, and a cruel hard
landlord to his tenants; but the house inside had regained its ancient
aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common
in Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls. The master was
too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is
yet.

     This, however, is not making progress with my story. Miss Cathy
rejected the peace-offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs,
Charlie and Phoenix. They came limping, and hanging their heads; and we
set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us. I could not wring
from my little lady how she had spent the day, except that, as I
supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Peniston Crags; and she arrived
without adventure to the gate of the farmhouse, when Hareton happened to
issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train.
They had a smart battle before their owners could separate them; that
formed an introduction. Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where
she was going, and asked him to show her the way, finally beguiling him
to accompany her. He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave and twenty
other queer places. But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a
description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however,
that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by
addressing him as a servant, and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by
calling him her cousin. Then the language he had held to her rankled in
her heart; she who was always "love," and "darling," and "queen," and
"angel," with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a
stranger! She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a
promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father. I
explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how
sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the
fact that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps
be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn't bear that
prospect. She pledged her word, and kept it, for my sake. After all, she
was a sweet little girl.

                        CHAPTER XIX.


A letter edged with black, announced the day of my master's return.
Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter,
and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew.
Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back,
and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellences
of her "real" cousin. The evening of their expected arrival came. Since
early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now,
attired in her new black frock - poor thing! her aunt's death impressed
her with no definite sorrow - she obliged me, by constant worrying, to
walk with her down through the grounds to meet them.

     "Linton is just six months younger than I am," she chattered, as we
strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under
shadow of the trees. "How delightful it will be to have him for a
playfellowl Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair. It was
lighter than mine - more flaxen, and quite as fine. I have it carefully
preserved in a little glass box; and I've often thought what pleasure it
would be to see its owner. Oh! I am happy - and papa, dear, dear papa!
Come, Ellen, let us run! Come, run!"

     She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober
footsteps reached the gate; and then she seated herself on the grassy
bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was
impossible. She couldn't be still a minute.

     "How long they are!" she exclaimed. "Ah, I see some dust on the
road; they are coming? No! When will they be here? May we not go a
little way - half a mile, Ellen - only just half a mile? Do say yes - to
that clump of birches at the turn!"

     I refused stanchly. At length her suspense was ended; the
travelling carriage rolled in sight. Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched
out her arms, as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the
window. He descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable
interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves.
While they exchanged caresses, I took a peep in to see after Linton. He
was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had
been winter - a pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been
taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance;
but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never
had. The latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to
close the door and leave him undisturbed, for the journey had fatigued
him. Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to
come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to
prepare the servants.

     "Now, darling," said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they
halted at the bottom of the front steps, "your cousin is not so strong
or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very
short time since; therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with
you directly. And don't harass him much by talking. Let him be quiet
this evening, at least, will you?"

     "Yes, yes, papa," answered Catherine; "but I do want to see him,
and he hasn't once looked out."

     The carriage stopped, and the sleeper being roused was lifted to
the ground by his uncle.

     "This is your cousin Cathy, Linton," he said, putting their little
hands together. "She's fond of you already; and mind you don't grieve
her by crying to-night. Try to be cheerful now; the travelling is at an
end, and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you
please."

     "Let me go to bed, then," answered the boy, shrinking from
Catherine's salute; and he put up his fingers to remove incipient tears.

     "Come, come, there's a good child," I whispered, leading him in.
"You'll make her weep too. See how sorry she is for you!"

     I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on
as sad a countenance as himself, and returned to her father. All three
entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready. I
proceeded to remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair
by the table; but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh.
My master inquired what was the matter.

     "I can't sit on a chair," sobbed the boy.

     "Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea,"
answered his uncle patiently.

     He had been greatly tried during the journey, I felt convinced, by
his fretful ailing charge. Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay
down. Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side. At first she
sat silent; but that could not last. She had resolved to make a pet of
her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced
stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her
saucer, like a baby. This pleased him, for he was not much better. He
dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile.

     "Oh, he'll do very well," said the master to me, after watching
them a minute - "very well, if we can keep him, Ellen. The company of a
child of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by
wishing for strength he'll gain it."

     "Ay, if we can keep him!" I mused to myself, and sore misgivings
came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought,
however will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father
and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be! Our doubts were
presently decided - even earlier than I expected. I had just taken the
children upstairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep
 - he would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case; I had
come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom
candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and
informed me that Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and
wished to speak with the master.

     "I shall ask him what he wants first," I said, in considerable
trepidation. "A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the
instant they have returned from a long journey. I don't think the master
can see him."

     Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words,
and now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday
garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face; and, holding his
hat in one hand and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his
shoes on the mat.

     "Good-evening, Joseph," I said coldly. "What business brings you
here to-night?"

     "It's Maister Linton I mun spake to," he answered, waving me
disdainfully aside.

     "Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular
to say, I'm sure he won't hear it now," I continued. "You had better sit
down in there, and entrust your message to me."

     "Which is his rahm?" pursued the fellow, surveying the range of
closed doors.

     I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very
reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable
visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day. Mr. Linton
had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my
heels, and pushing into the apartnment, planted himself at the far side
of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and
began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition,--
     "Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back 'bout
him."

     Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow
overcast his features. He would have pitied the child on his own
account; but recalling Isabella's hopes and fears, and anxious wishes
for her son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved
bitterly at the prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart
how it might be avoided. No plan offered itself. The very exhibition of
any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory.
There was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was not going to
rouse him from his sleep.

     "Tell Mr. Heathcliff," he answered calmly, "that his son shall come
to Wuthering Heights to-morrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the
distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired
him to remain under my guardianship; and at present his health is very
precarious."

     "Noa!" said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and
assuming an authoritative air; "noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks
noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther, but he'll hev his lad, und I
mun tak him; soa now ye knaw!"

     "You shall not to-night!" answered Linton decisively.

     "Walk downstairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have
said. - Ellen, show him down. - Go!"

     And aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the
room of him, and closed the door.

     "Varrah weell!" shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. "To-morn,
he's come hisseln; and thrust him out, if ye darr!"

                        CHAPTER XX.


To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton
commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony; and
said he,--
     "As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or bad,
you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter. She cannot
associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in
ignorance of his proximity, lest she should be restless and anxious to
visit the Heights. Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and
he has been obliged to leave us."

     Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five
o'clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further
travelling; but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going
to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see
him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should
recover from his late journey.

     "My father!" he cried, in strange perplexity.

     "Mamma never told me I had a father. Where does he live? I'd rather
stay with uncle."

     "He lives a little distance from the Grange," I replied, just
beyond those hills - not so far, but you may walk over here when you get
hearty. And you should be glad to go home, and to see him. You must try
to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you."

     "But why have I not heard of him before?" asked Linton. "Why didn't
mamma and he live together, as other people do?"

     "He had business to keep him in the north," I answered, "and your
mother's health required her to reside in the south."

     "And why didn't mamma speak to me about him?" persevered the child.
"She often talked of uncle, and I learned to love him !ong ago. How am I
to love papa? I don't know him."

     "Oh, all children love their parents," I said. "Your mother,
perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him
often to you. Let us make haste. An early ride on such a beautiful
morning is much preferable to an hour's more sleep."

     "Is she to go with us," he demanded - "the little girl I saw
yesterday?"

     "Not now," replied I.

     "Is uncle?" he continued.

     "No; I shall be your companion there," I said.

     Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study.

     "I won't go without uncle," he cried at length. "I can't tell
whereyou mean to take me."

     I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing
reluctance to meet his father. Still he obstinately resisted any
progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance
in coaxing him out of bed. The poor thing was finally got off, with
several delusive assurances that his absence should be short, that Mr.
Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally
ill-founded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the
way. The pure heather-scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle
canter of Minny relieved his despondency after a while. He began to put
questions concerning his new home and its inhabitants with greater
interest and liveliness.

     "Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?"
he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a
light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue.

     "It is not so buried in trees," I replied, "and it is not quite so
large, but you can see the country beautifully all round, and the air is
healthier for you - fresher and dryer. You will perhaps think the
building old and dark at first, though it is a respectable house - the
next best in the neighbourhood. And you will have such nice rambles on
the moors. Hareton Earnshaw - that is Miss Cathy's other cousin, and so
yours in a manner - will show you all the sweetest spots; and you can
bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study; and
now and then your uncle may join you in a walk. He does frequently walk
out on the hills."

     "And what is my father like?" he asked. "Is he as young and
handsome as uncle?"

     "He's as young," said I; "but he has black hair and eyes, and looks
sterner, and he is taller and bigger altogether. He'll not seem to you
so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way; still,
mind you be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he'll be fonder of
you than any uncle, for you are his own."

     "Black hair and eyes!" mused Linton. "I can't fancy him. Then I am
not like him, am I?"

     "Not much," I answered; not a morsel, I thought, surveying with
regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his
large languid eyes--his mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid
touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her
sparkiing spirit.

     "How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me" he
murmured. "Has he ever seen me? If he has, I must have been a baby. I
remember not a single thing about him."

     "Why, Master Linton," said I, "three hundred miles is a great
distance; and ten years seem very different in length to a grown-up
person compared with what they do to you. It is probable Mr.
Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a
convenient opportunity; and now it is too late. Don't trouble him with
questions on the subject; it will disturb him for no good."

     The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the
remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden gate.
I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the
carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry bushes
and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head. His
private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode.
But he had sense to postpone complaining. There might be compensation
within. Before he dismounted I went and opened the door. It was
half-past six; the family had just finished breakfast; the servant was
clearing and wiping down the table. Joseph stood by his master's chair,
telling some tale concerning a lame horse, and Hareton was preparing for
the hay-fleld.

     "Hullo, Nelly!" said Mr. Heathcliff when he saw me. "I feared I
should have to come down and fetch my property myself. You've brought
it, have you? Let us see what we can make of it.

     He got up and strode to the door. Hareton and Joseph followed in
gaping curiosity. Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the
three.

     "Sure-ly," said Joseph, after a grave inspection, "he's swopped wi'
ye, maister, an' yon's his lass!" Heathcliff, having stared his son
into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh.

     "God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing" he exclaimed.
"Haven't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my
soul! but that's worse than I expected, and the devil knows I was not
sanguine!"

     I bade the trembling and bewildered child get down and enter. He
did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or
whether it were intended for him; indeed, he was not yet certain that
the grim, sneering stranger was his father. But he clung to me with
growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding
him "come hither," he hid his face on my shoulder and wept.

     "Tut, tut!" said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him
roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin.
"None of that nonsense! We're not going to hurt thee, Linton. Isn't that
thy name? Thou art thy mother's child entirely! Where is my share in
thee, puling chicken?"

     He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls,
felt his slender arms and his small fingers, during which examination
Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the
inspector.

     "Do you know me?" asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that
the limbs were all equally frail nnd feeble.

     "No," said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear.

     "You've heard of me, I dare say?"

     "No," he replied again.

     "No! What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard
for me! You are my son, then, I'll tell you; and your mother was a
wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you
possessed. Now, don't wince and colour up. Though it is something to see
you have not white blood. Be a good lad, and I'll do for you. - Nelly,
if you be tired, you may sit down; if not, get home again. I guess
you'll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and
this thing won't be settled while you linger about it."

     "Well," replied I, "I hope you'll be kind to the boy, Mr.
Heathcliff, or you'll not keep him long; and he's all you have akin in
the wide world that you will ever know, remember."

     "I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear," he said, laughing.
"Only nobody else must be kind to him. I'm jealous of monopolizing his
affection. And to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some
breakfast.--Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work - Yes,
Nell," he added, when they had departed, "my son is prospective owner
of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of
being his successor. Besides, he's mine, and I want the triumph of
seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estates - my child hiring
their children to till their father's lands for wages. That is the sole
consideration which can make me endure the whelp. I despise him for
himself, and hate him for the memories he revives. But that
consideration is sufficient. He's safe with me, and shall be tended as
carefully as your master tends his own. I have a room upstairs furnished
for him in handsome style. I've engaged a tutor also to come three times
a week, from twenty miles distance, to teach him what he pleases to
learn. I've ordered Hareton to obey him; and, in fact, I've arranged
everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in
him, above his associates. I do regret, however, that he so little
deserves the trouble. If I wished any blessing in the world, it was to
find him a worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with
the whey-faced whining wretch!"

     While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of
milk-porridge, and placed it before Linton, who stirred round the homely
mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw
the old manservant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child,
though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because
Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour.

     "Cannot ate it?" repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and
subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. "But
Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little un; and what
wer gooid eneugh for him's gooid eneugh for ye, I's rayther think."

     "I shan't eat it!" answered Linton snappishly. "Take it away."
Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.

     "Is there aught ails th' victuals?" he asked, thrusting the tray
under Heathcliff's nose.

     "What should ail them?" he said.

     "Wah!" answered Joseph, "yon dainty chap says he cannut ate 'em.
But I guess it's raight. His mother wer just soa; we wer a'most too
mucky to sow t' corn for makking her breead."

     "Don't mention his mother to me," said the master angrily. "Get him
something that he can eat, that's all. --What is his usual food, Nelly?"

     I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received
instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father's
selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate
constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I'll console
Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has
taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while
Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly
sheep-dog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated. As I closed
the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words,--
     "Don't leave me! I'll not stay here! I'll not stay here"

     Then the latch was raised and fell. They did not suffer him to come
forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief
guardianship ended.

                        CHAPTER XXI.


We had sad work with little Cathy that day. She rose in high glee, eager
to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed
the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her
by affirming he should come back soon. He added, however, "if I can get
him," and there were no hopes of that. This promise poorly pacified her;
but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of
her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his
features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognize him.

     When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights,
in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young
master got on, for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and
was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak
health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to
dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to
conceal it. He had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not
do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes
together. There seldom passed much talk between them. Linton learned his
lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the
parlour, or else lay in bed all day, for he was constantly getting
coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort.

     "And I never knew such a faint-hearted creature," added the woman,
"nor one so careful of hisseln. He will go on if I leave the window open
a bit late in the evening. Oh, it's killing, a breath of night air! And
he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph's bacca pipe is
poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk,
milk for ever, heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter;
and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the
fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and
if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him - Hareton is not bad-natured,
though he's rough - they're sure to part, one swearing and the other
crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a
mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to turn
him out of doors if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then
he won't go into danger of temptation. He never enters the parlour, and
should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him
upstairs directly."

     I divined from this account that utter lack of sympathy had
rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so
originally; and my interest in him consequently decayed, though still I
was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been
left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information. He thought a
great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him;
and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the
village. She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his
father, and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three
or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly,
two years after he came, and another, whom I did not know, was her
successor. She lives there still.

     Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss
Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never
manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary
of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone
in the library, and walked at dusk as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where
he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore
Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This 20th of
March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my
young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a
ramble on the edge of the moor with me. Mr. Linton had given her leave,
if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.

     "So make haste, Ellen!" she cried. "I know where I wish to go -
where a colony of moor game are settled. I want to see whether they have
made their nests yet."

     "That must be a good distance up," I answered.

     "They don't breed on the edge of the moor."

     "No, it's not," she said. "I've gone very near with papa."

     I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the
matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off
again like a young greyhound; and at first I found plenty of
entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and
enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine, and watching her, my pet and my
delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright
cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes
radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel,
in those days. It's a pity she could not be content.

     "Well," said I, "where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be
at them. The Grange park fence is a great way off now."

     "Oh, a little farther - only a little farther, Ellen," was her
answer continually. "Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the
time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds."

     But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass that at
length I began to be weary, and told oher we must halt and retrace our
steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way. She
either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I
was compelled to follow. Finally she dived into a hollow, and before I
came in sight of her again she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights
than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of
whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.

     Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or at least
hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land,
and he was reproving the poacher.

     "I've neither taken any nor found any," she said, as I toiled to
them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. "I didn't
mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I
wished to see the eggs."

     Heathcliff glanced at me with an all-meaning smile, expressing his
acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards
it, and demanded who "papa" was.

     "Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange," she replied.

     "I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that
way."

     "You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?" he said
sarcastically.

     "And what are you?" inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the
speaker. "That man I've seen before. Is he your son?"

     She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained
nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to
his age; he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.

     "Miss Cathy," I interrupted, "it will be three hours instead of one
that we are out presently. We really must go back."

     "No, that man is not my son," answered Heathcliff, pushing me
aside. "But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and though
your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better
for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath and walk into my
house? You'll get home earlier for the ease, and you shall receive a
kind welcome."

     I whispered Catherine that she mustn't on any account accede to the
proposal. It was entirely out of the question.

     "Why?" she asked aloud. "I'm tired of running, and the ground is
dewy. I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen
his son. He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives - at the
farmhouse I isited in coming from Peniston Crags. Don't you?"

     "I do - Come, Nelly, hold your tongue; it will be a treat for her
to look in on us. - Hareton, get forwards with the lass. - You shall
walk with me, Nelly."

     "No, she's not going to any such place," I cried, struggling to
release my arm, which he had seized; but she was almost at the
door-stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her
appointed companion did not pretend to escort her; he shied off by the
roadside and vanished.

     "Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong," I continued. "You know you mean
no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as
ever we return; and I shall have the blame."

     "I want her to see Linton," he answered. "He's looking better these
few days. It's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon persuade
her to keep the visit secret. Where is the harm of it?"

     "The harm of it is that her father would hate me if he found I
suffered her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad
design in encouraging her to do so," I replied.

     "My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole
scope," he said - "that the two cousins may fall in love, and get
married. I'm acting generously to your master. His young chit has no
expectations, and should she second my wishes, she'll be provided for at
once as joint successor with Linton."

     "If Linton died," I answered, "and his life is quite uncertain,
Catherine would be the heir."

     "No, she would not," he said. "There is no clause in the will to
secure it so. His property would go to me. But to prevent disputes I
desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about."

     "And I am resolved she shall never approach your house with me
again," I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our
coming.

     Heathcliff bade me be quiet, and preceding us up the path, hastened
to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could
not exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled
when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was
foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from
desiring her injury. Linton stood on the hearth. He had been out walking
in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring
him dry shoes. He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months
of sixteen. His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion
brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre
borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.

     "Now, who is that?" asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. "Can
you tell?"

     "Your son?" she said, having doubtfully surveyed first one and then
the other.

     "Yes, yes," answered he. "But is this the only time you have beheld
him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. - Linton, don't you recall your
cousin that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?"

     "What, Linton!" cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the
name. "Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! - Are you Linton?"

     The youth stepped forward and acknowledged himself. She kissed him
fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in
the appearance of each. Catherine had reached her full height; her
figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole
aspect sparkling with health and spirits. Linton's looks and movements
were very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace
in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not
unpleasing. After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his
cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his
attention between the objects inside and those that lay
without--pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting
the former alone.

     "And you are my uncle, then!" she cried, reaching up to salute him.
"I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't you
visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close
neighbours, and never see us, is odd. What have you done so for?"

     "I visited it once or twice too often before you were born," he
answered. "There - damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them
to Linton - they are thrown away on me."

     "Naughty Ellenl" exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with
her lavish caresses. "Wicked Ellen, to try to hinder me from entering!
But I'll take this walk every morning in future - may I, uncle? - and
sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us?"

     "Of coursel" replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace,
resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. "But
stay," he continued, turning towards the young lady. "Now I think of it,
I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me. We
quarrelled at one time of our lives with unchristian ferocity, and if
you mention coming here to him he'll put a veto on your visits
altogether. Therefore you must not mention it, unless you be careless of
seeing your cousin hereafter. You may come if you will, but you must not
mention it,"

     "Why did you quarrel?" asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.

     "He thought me too poor to wed his sister," answered Heathcliff,
"and was grieved that I got her. His pride was hurt, and he'll never
forgive it."

     "That's wrong!" said the young lady. "Some time I'll tell him so.
But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come here then;
he shall come to the Grange."

     "It will be too far for me," murmured her cousin; "to walk four
miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then - not
every morning, but once or twice a week."

     The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.

     "I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour," he muttered to me.
"Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and
send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton! Do you know that,
twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have
loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from her
love. I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself
briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh,
confound the vapid thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never
looks at her. - Lintonl"

     "Yes, father," answered the boy.

     "Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about - not even a
rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden before you change
your shoes, and into the stable to see your horse."

     "Wouldn't you rather sit here?" asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a
tone which expressed reluctance to move again.

     "I don't know," she replied, casting a longing look to the door,
and evidently eager to be active. He kept his seat, and shrank closer to
the fire. Heath cliff rose and went into the kitchen, and from thence
to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently
the two re-entered. The young man had been washing himself, as was
visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair.

     "Oh, I'Il ask you, uncle," cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the
housekeeper's assertion. "That is not my cousin, is he?"

     "'Yes," he replied - "your mother's nephew. Don't you like him?"
Catherine looked queer.

     "Is he not a handsome lad?" he continued. The uncivil little thing
stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He
laughed. Hareton darkened. I perceived he was very sensitive to
suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority.
But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming,--
     "You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a -
--What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her
round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use any bad
words; and don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be
ready to hide your face when she is; and when you speak, say your words
slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain
her as nicely as you can."

     He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his
countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying
the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest.
Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then
turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself,
and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of
conversation.

     "I've tied his tongue," observed Heathcliff. "He'll not venture a
single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect me at his age - nay,
some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid - so 'gaumless,' as Joseph
calls it?"

     "Worse," I replied, "because more sullen with it."

     "I've a pleasure in him," he continued, reflecting aloud. "He has
satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it
half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathize with all his
feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for
instance, exactly. It is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer,
though. And he'll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness
and ignorance. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father
secured me, and lower, for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've
taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak. Don't you
think Hindley would be proud of his son if he could see him - almost as
proud as I am of mine? But there's this difference; one is gold put to
the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a
service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it, yet I shall have
the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had
first-rate qualities, and they are lost, rendered worse than unavailing.
I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but me are aware
of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own
that I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could rise from
his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I should have the fun
of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he
should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world."

     Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply,
because I saw that he expected none. Meantime our young companion, who
sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms
of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat
of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue. His father remarked
the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely
extended towards his cap.

     "Get up, you idle boy!" he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness.
"Away after them! They are just at the corner, by the stand of hives."

     Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was
open, and as he stepped out I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable
attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up,
and scratched his head like a true clown.

     "It's some damnable writing," he answered. "I cannot read it."

     "Can't read it?" cried Catherine. "I can read it; it's English. But
I want to know why it is there."

     Linton giggled - the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited.

     "He does not know his letters," he said to his cousin.

     "Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?"

     "Is he all as he should be?" asked Miss Cathy seriously, "or is he
simple - not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time he
looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can hardly
understand him, I'm sure."

     Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly, who
certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.

     "There's nothing the matter but laziness - is there, Earnshaw?" he
said. "My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience the
consequence of scorning 'book-larning,' as you would say. - Have you
noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?"

     "Why, where the devil is the use on't?" growled Hareton, more ready
in answering his daily companion. He was about to enlarge further, but
the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment, my giddy miss
being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to
matter of amusement.

     "Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?" tittered Linton.
"Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth
without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman - now do!"

     "If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute,
I would, pitiful lath of a crater!" retorted the angry boor, retreating,
while his face burned with mingled rage and mortification, for he was
conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it.

     Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation as well as I,
smiled when he saw him go, but immediately afterwards cast a look of
singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the
doorway, the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's
faults and deficiencies and relating anecdotes of his goings-on, and the
girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the
ill-nature they evinced. I began to dislike more than to compassionate
Linton, and to excuse his father, in some measure, for holding him
cheap.

     We stayed till afternoon - I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner;
but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained
ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home I would fain have
enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted,
but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them.

     "Aha!" she cried, "you take papa's side, Ellen. You are partial, I
know, or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion
that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really extremely angry, only
I'm so pleased I can't show it. But you must hold your tongue about my
uncle. He's my uncle, remember, and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with
him."

     And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince
her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night, because
she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out, sadly to my
chagrin. And still I was not altogether sorry. I thought the burden of
directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me.
But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that
she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and
Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her
petted will.

     "Papa!" she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, "guess whom
I saw yesterday in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started! You've
not done right, have you, now? I saw - -- But listen, and you shall hear
how I found you out, and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet
pretended to pity me so when I kept hoping, and was always
disappointed about Linton's coming back."

     She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences;
and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said
nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if
she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her.
Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly
enjoy?

     "It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff," she answered.

     "Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours,
Cathy?" he said. "No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but
because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me, and is a most diabolical man,
delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the
slightest opportunity. I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance
with your cousin without being brought into contact with him, and I knew
he would detest you on my account; so for your own good, and nothing
else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again. I meant
to explain this some time as you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed
it."

     "But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa," observed Catherine,
not at all convinced; "and he didn't object to our seeing each other. He
said I might come to his house when I pleased, only I must not tell you,
because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for
marrying Aunt Isabella. And you won't. you are the one to be blamed. He
is willing to let us be friends - at least, Linton and I - and you are
not."

     My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her
uncle-in-law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to
Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property.
He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic, for though he spoke
little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his
ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's
death. "She might have been living yet if it had not been for him!" was
his constant bitter reflection; and in his eyes Heathcliff seemed a
murderer. Miss Cathy - conversant with no bad deeds except her own
slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot
temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were
committed - was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on
and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans
without a visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and
shocked at this new view of human nature, excluded from all her studies
and all her ideas till now, that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to
pursue the subject. He merely added,--
     "You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his
house and family. Now return to your old employments and amusements, and
think no more about them."

     Catherine kissed her father and sat down quietly to her lessons for
a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into
the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual. But in the evening, when
she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found
her crying on her knees by the bedside.

     "Oh, fie, silly child!" I exclaimed. "If you had any real griefs
you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You never
had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine. Suppose, for a
minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the
world; how would you feel then? Compare the present occasion with such
an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead
of coveting more."

     "I'm not crying for myself, Ellen," she answered--
     "it's for him. He expected to see me again to-morrow, and there
he'll be so disappointed; and he'll wait for me, and I shan't come."

     "Nonsense!" said I. "Do you imagine he has thought as much of you
as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a
hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for
two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no
further about you."

     "But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come," she
asked, rising to her feet, "and just send those books I promised to lend
him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them
extremely when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen?"

     "No, indeed! no, indeed!" replied I, with decision.

     "Then he would write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No,
Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely; so papa
expects, and I shall see that it is done."

     "But how can one little note - --" she recommenced, putting on an
imploring countenance.

     "Silence!" I interrupted. "We'll not begin with your little notes.
Get into bed."

     She threw at me a very naughty look - so naughty that I would not
kiss her good-night at first. I covered her up and shut her door in
great displeasure, but repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo!
there was miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before
her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on
my entrance.

     "You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine," I said, "if you write
it; and at present I shall put out your candle."

     I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap
on my hand, and a petulant "Cross thing!" I then quitted her again, and
she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter
was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came
from the village; but that I did not learn till some time afterwards.
Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper, though she grew
wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself; and often, if I
came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the
book, evidently desirous to hide it, and I detected edges of loose paper
sticking out beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down
early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were
expecting the arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a
cabinet in the library which she would trifle over for hours, and whose
key she took special care to remove when she left it.

     One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the
playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were
transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were
aroused. I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so at
night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched and
readily found among my house-keys one that would fit the lock. Having
opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with
me to examine at leisure in my own chamber. Though I could not but
suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of
correspondence--daily, almost, it must have been - from Linton Heath

cliff, answers to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were
embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious
love-letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet
with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more
experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds
of ardour and flatness, commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in
the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied,
incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy I don't know, but
they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as
I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside,
relocking the vacant drawer.

     Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the
kitchen. I watched her go to the door on the arrival of a certain little
boy, and while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into
his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the garden
and laid wait for the messenger, who fought valorously to defend his
trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in abstracting
the epistle, and threatening serious consequences if he did not look
sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's
affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her
cousin's--very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went
meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert
herself with rambling about the park, so, at the conclusion of her
morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father
sat reading at the table, and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work
in some unripped fringes of the window curtain, keeping my eye steadily
fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered
nest which it had left brimful of chirping young ones express more
complete despair in its anguished cries and flutterings than she by her
single "Oh!" and the change that transfigured her late happy
countenance. Mr. Linton looked up.

     "What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?" he said.

     His tone and look assured her he had not been the discoverer of the
hoard.

     "No, papa," she gasped - "Ellen! Ellenl come upstairs! I'm sick!"

     I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.

     "O Ellen, you have got them!" she commenced immediately, dropping
on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. "Oh, give them to me, and
I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa,
Ellen? Say you have not. I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do
it any more!"

     With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.

     "So," I exclaimed, "Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it
seems; you may well be ashamed of them. A fine bundle of trash you
study in your leisure hours, to be sure. Why, it's good enough to be
printed. And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it
before him? I haven't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep
your ridiculous secrets. For shame! And you must have led the way in
writing such absurdities. He would not have thought of beginning, I'm
certain."

     "I didn't! I didn't!" sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. "I
didn't once think of loving him till -  - "

     "Loving!" cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word.
"Loving! Did anybody ever hear the like? I might just as well talk of
loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving,
indeed! And both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours
in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the
library, and we'll see what your father says to such loving."

     She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head;
and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn
them - do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much
inclined to laugh as scold - for I esteemed it all girlish vanity - I at
length relented in a measure, and asked,--
     "If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to
send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have
sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?"

     "We don't send playthings!" cried Catherine, her pride overcoming
her shame.

     "Nor anything at all then, my lady," I said. "Unless you will, here
I go."

     "I promise, Ellen!" she cried, catching my dress.

     "Oh, put them in the fire! - do, do!" But when I proceeded to open
a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne. She
earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two.

     "One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!" I unknotted the
handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the
flame curled up the chimney.

     "I will have one, you cruel wretch," she screamed, darting her hand
into the fire and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the
expense of her fingers.

     "Very well; and I will have some to exhibit to papa!" I answered,
shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door.

     She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me
to finish the immolation. It was done. I stirred up the ashes, and
interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a
sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended
to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost
gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't
dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale and red about the eyes, and
marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the
letter by a slip of paper inscribed, "Master Heathcliff is requested to
send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them." And
thenceforth the little boy came with vacant pockets.

                        CHAPTER XXII.


Summer drew to an end, and early autumn. It was past Michaelmas; but the
harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still
uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among
the reapers. At the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk,
and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad
cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors
throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.

     Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been
considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father
insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his
companionship no longer. I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as
much as possible, with mine - an inefficient substitute, for I could
only spare two or three hours from my numerous diurnal occupations to
follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable
than his.

     On an afternoon in October or the beginning of November, a fresh,
watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist,
withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds - dark
gray streamers, rapidly mounting from the west and boding abundant rain
- I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain
of showers. She refused, and I unwillingly donned a cloak and took my
umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park - a
formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited (and that she
invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary) - a thing
never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his
increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly
on. There was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might
well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I
could detect her raising a hand and brushing something off her cheeks. I
gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the
road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their
roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure. The soil was too loose for
the latter, and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer
Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the
branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her
agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to
scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew
there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie
in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs - my
nursery lore - to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed
and entice their young ones to fly; or nestling with closed lids, half
thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.

     "Look, miss!" I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of
one twisted tree; "winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up
yonder - the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those
turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up and pluck it
to show to papa?"

     Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its
earthy shelter, and replied at length,--
     "No, I'll not touch it. But it looks melancholy, does it not,
Ellen?"

     "Yes," I observed - "about as starved and sackless as you. Your
cheeks are bloodless. Let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low I
dare say I shall keep up with you."

     "No," she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at
intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a
fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and
ever and anon her hand was lifted to her averted face.

     "Catherine, why are you crying, love?" I asked, approaching and
putting my arm over her shoulder. "You mustn't cry because papa has a
cold. Be thankful it is nothing worse." She now put no further restraint
on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs.

     "Oh, it will be something worse!" she said. "And what shall I do
when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your
words, Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how
dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead!"

     "None can tell whether you won't die before us," I replied. "It's
wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come
before any of us go. Master is young, and I am strong and hardly
forty-five. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And
suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more
years than you have counted, miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn
a calamity above twenty years beforehand?"

     "But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa," she remarked, gazing up
with timid hope to seek further consolation.

     "Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her," I replied. "She
wasn't as happy as master; she hadn't as much to live for. All you need
do is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you
cheerful, and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject. Mind that, Cathy.
I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless,
and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who
would be glad to have him in his grave, and allowed him to discover that
you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make."

     "I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness," answered my
companion. "I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll never -
never - oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to
vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen, and I know it by this: I
pray every night that I may live after him, be cause I would rather be
miserable than that he should be. That proves I love him better than
myself."

     "Good words," I replied. "But deeds must prove it also. And after
he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of
fear."

     As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my
young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated
herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that
bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild rose trees shadowing
the highway side. The lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could
touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to
pull them, her hat fell off, and as the door was locked she proposed
scrambling down to recover it. I bade her be cautious lest she got a
fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy
matter. The stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose bushes
and blackberry stragglers could yield no assistance in reascending. I,
like a fool, didn't recollect that till I heard her laughing and
exclaiming,--
     "Ellen, you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to
the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side."

     "Stay where you are," I answered. "I have my bundle of keys in my
pocket. Perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go."

    Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door,
while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last,
and found that none would do. So, repeating my desire that she would
remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an
approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse. Cathy's dance
stopped also.

     "Who is that?" I whispered.

     "Ellen, I wish you could open the door," whispered back my
companion anxiously.

     "Ho, Miss Lintonl" cried a deep voice (the rider's);

     "I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an
explanation to ask and obtain."

     "I shan't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff," answered Catherine. "Papa
says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says
the same."

     "That is nothing to the purpose," said Heathcliff. (He it was.) "I
don't hate my son, I suppose, and it is concerning him that I demand
your attention. Yes, you have cause to blush. Two or three months since
were you not in the habit of writing to Linton - making love in play,
eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that
 - you especially, the elder, and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've
got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll send them to your
father. I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't
 you? Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was
in earnest - in love, really. As true as I live, he's dying for you,
breaking his heart at your fickleness - not figuratively, but actually.
Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have
used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his
idiocy, he gets worse daily; and he'll be under the sod before summer
unless you restore him!"

     "How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?" I called from the
inside. "Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry
falsehoods? - Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone. You
won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is
impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger."

     "I was not aware there were eavesdroppers," muttered the detected
villain. "Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your
double-dealing," he added aloud. "How could you lie so glaringly as to
affirm I hated the 'poor child,' and invent bugbear stories to terrify
her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my
bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if I have not
spoken truth; do - there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my
place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless
lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you when your father
himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the
same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and
none but you can save him!"

     The lock gave way, and I issued out.

     "I swear Linton is dying," repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me.
"And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you
won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return
till this time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely
object to her visiting her cousin."

     "Come in," said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to
re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of
the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

     He pushed his horse close, and bending down, observed,--
     "Miss Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with
Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a
harsh set. He pines for kindness as well as love, and a kind word from
you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions,
but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and
night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you
neither write nor call."

     I closed the door and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in
holding it, and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath,
for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees,
and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the
encounter with Heathcliff as we stretched towards home, but I divined
instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness.
Her features were so sad they did not seem hers. She evidently regarded
what she had heard as every syllable true.

     The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to
his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and
asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together, and
afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was
weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me
absorbed in my occupation she recommenced her silent weeping; it
appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy
it a while, then I expostulated, deriding and ridiculing all Mr.
Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would
coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had
produced; it was just what he intended.

     "You may be right, Ellen," she answered, "but I shall never feel at
ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't
write, and convince him that I shall not change."

     What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity?
We parted that night hostile, but next day beheld me on the road to
Wuthering Heights by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I
couldn't bear to witness her sorrow, to see her pale dejected
countenance and heavy eyes; and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton
himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was
founded on fact.

                        CHAPTER XXIII.


The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning, half frost, half
drizzle, and temporary brooks crossed our path, gurgling from the
uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted. I was cross and low - exactly
the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We
entered the farmhouse by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr.
Heathcliff were really absent, because I put slight faith in his own
affirmation.

     Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring
fire, a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces
of toasted oat-cake, and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine
ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in. My
question remained so long unanswered that I thought the old man had
grown deaf, and repeated it louder.

     "Na - ay!" he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. "Na -
ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough."

     "Joseph!" cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the
inner room. "How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes
now. Joseph! come this moment."

     Vigorous puffs and a resolute stare into the grate declared he had
no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible -
one gone on an errand, and the other at his work probably. We knew
Linton's tones, and entered.

     "Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death," said the
boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.

     He stopped on observing his error. His cousin flew to him.

     "Is that you, Miss Linton?" he said, raising his head from the arm
of the great chair in which he reclined.

     "No, don't kiss me; it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you
would call," continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's
embrace, while she stood by looking very contrite. "Will you shut the
door, if you please? You left it open; and those - those detestable
creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold!"

     I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The
invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome
cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.

     "Well, Linton," murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow
relaxed, "are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?"

     "Why didn't you come before?" he asked. "You should have come,
instead of writing. It tired me dread fully writing those long letters.
I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk nor
anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you" - looking at me -
"step into the kitchen and see?"

     I had received no thanks for my other service, and being unwilling
to run to and fro at his behest, I replied,--
     "Nobody is out there but Joseph."

     "I want to drink," he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. "Zillah is
constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went; it's miserable! And
I'm obliged to come down here; they resolved never to hear me upstairs."

     "Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?" I asked,
perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.

     "Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least," he
cried. "The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton
laughs at me! I hate him! Indeed, I hate them all! They are odious
beings."

     Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in
the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bade her add a
spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a
small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.

     "And are you glad to see me?" asked she, reiterating her former
question, and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.

     "Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours!" he
replied. "But I have been vexed because you wouldn't come. And papa
swore it was owing to me. He called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless
thing, and said you despised me, and if he had been in my place he would
be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you
don't despise me, do you, Miss -  - -"

     "I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy," interrupted my young
lady. "Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than
anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though, and I dare not come
when he returns. Will he stay away many days?"

     "Not many," answered Linton; "but he goes on to the moors
frequently since the shooting season commenced, and you might spend an
hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should
not be peevish with you. You'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready
to help me, wouldn't you?"

     "Yes," said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair. "If I could
only get papa's consent I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton!
I wish you were my brother."

     "And then you would like me as well as your father?" observed he
more cheerfully. "But papa says you would love me better than him and
all the world if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that."

     "No, I should never love anybody better than papa," she returned
gravely. "And people hate their wives sometimes, but not their sisters
and brothers; and if you were the latter you would live with us, and
papa would be as fond of you as he is of me."

     Linton denied that people ever hated their wives, but Cathy
affirmed they did, and in her wisdom instanced his own father's aversion
to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't
succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much
irritated, asserted her relation was false.

     "Papa told me, and papa does not tell falsehoods," she answered
pertly.

     "My papa scorns yours!" cried Linton. "He calls him a sneaking
fool."

     "Yours is a wicked man," retorted Catherine, "and you are very
naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made
Aunt Isabella leave him as she did."

     "She didn't leave him," said the boy. "You shan't contradict me."

     "She did," cried my young lady.

     "Well, I'll tell you something," said Linton. "Your mother hated
your father. Now then."

     "Oh!" exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

     "And she loved mine," added he.

     "You little liar! I hate you now!" she panted, and her face grew
red with passion.

     "She did! she did!" sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his
chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other
disputant, who stood behind.

     "Hush, Master Heathcliff!" I said. "That's your father's tale too,
I suppose."

     "It isn't. You hold your tongue!" he answered.--
     "She did! she did, Catherine! She did! she did!" Cathy, beside
herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against
one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon
ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even me. As to
his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had
done, though she said nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself.
Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine
quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly
into the fire.

     "How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?" I inquired, after waiting
ten minutes.

     "I wish she felt as I do," he replied - "spiteful, cruel thing!
Hareton never touches me; he never struck me in his life. And I was
better to-day; and there - --" His voice died in a whimper.

     "I didn't strike you!" muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.

     He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up
for a quarter of an hour, on purpose to distress his cousin, apparently,
for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and
pathos into the inflections of his voice.

     "I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton," she said at length, racked beyond
endurance. "But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had
no idea that you could either. You're not much, are you, Linton? Don't
let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! Speak to me!"

     "I can't speak to you," he murmured. "You've hurt me so that I
shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd
know what it was; but you'll be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony,
and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful
nights." And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.

     "Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights," I said,
"it won't be miss who spoils your ease; you'd be the same had she never
come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get
quieter when we leave you."

     "Must I go?" asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. "Do you
want me to go, Linton?"

     "You can't alter what you've done," he replied pettishly, shrinking
from her, "unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a
fever."

     "Well, then, I must go?" she repeated.

     "Let me alone, at least," said he. "I can't bear your talking."

     She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome
while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a
movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream.
Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearth-stone, and lay writhing
in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to
be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his
disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to
attempt humouring him. Not so my companion. She ran back in terror,
knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet
from lack of breath, by no means from compunction at distressing her.

     "I shall lift him on to the settle," I said, "and he may roll about
as he pleases. We can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfled,
Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him, and that his
condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then,
there he is! Come away. As soon as he knows there is nobody by to care
for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still."

     She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water. He
rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a
stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably.

     "I can't do with that," he said; "it's not high enough."

     Catherine brought another to lay above it.

     "That's too high," murmured the provoking thing.

     "How must I arrange it, then?" she asked despairingly.

     He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and
converted her shoulder into a support.

     "No, that won't do," I said. "You'll be content with the cushion,
Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already; we
cannot remain five minutes longer."

     "Yes, yes; we can!" replied Cathy. "He's good and patient now. He's
beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night
if I believe he is the worse for my visit, and then I dare not come
again.--Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I mustn't come if I have
hurt you."

     "You must come, to cure me," he answered. "You ought to come,
because you have hurt me; you know you have extremely. I was not as ill
when you entered as I am at present - was I?"

     "But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion."

     "I didn't do it all," said his cousin. "However, we'll be friends
now. And you want me - you would wish to see me sometimes, really?"

     "I told you I did," he replied impatiently. "Sit on the settle and
let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons
together. Sit quite still and don't talk; but you may sing a song, if
you can sing, or you may say a nice long interesting ballad - one of
those you promised to teach me - or a story. I'd rather have a ballad,
though. Begin."

     Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment
pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that
another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on
until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court,
returning for his dinner.

     "And to-morrow, Catherine - will you be here tomorrow?" asked young
Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.

     "No," I answered, "nor next day neither." She, however, gave a
different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped
and whispered in his ear.

     "You won't go to-morrow, recollect, miss," I commenced, when we
were out of the house. "You are not dreaming of it, are you?"

     She smiled.

     "Oh, I'll take good care," I continued. "I'll have that lock
mended, and you can escape by no way else."

     "I can get over the wall," she said, laughing. "The Grange is not a
prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost
seventeen; I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if
he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser -
less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some
slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling when he's good. I'd make
such a pet of him if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we,
after we were used to each other? Don't you like him, Ellen?"

     "Like him!" I exclaimed. "The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip
that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff
conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see spring,
indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it
is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more
tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you have no chance of having him
for a husband, Miss Catherine."

     My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his
death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.

     "He's younger than I," she answered, after a protracted pause of
meditation, "and he ought to live the longest. He will - he must live as
long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north;
I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him - the same as papa
has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?"

     "Well, well," I cried, "after all we needn't trouble ourselves; for
listen, miss - and mind I'll keep my word; if you attempt going to
Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton;
and unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be
revived."

     "It has been revived," muttered Cathy sulkily.

     "Must not be continued, then," I said.

     "We'll see," was her reply; and she set off at a gallop, leaving me
to toil in the rear.

     We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we
had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no
explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my
soaked shoes and stockings, but sitting such a while at the Heights had
done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during
three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties - a
calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am
thankful to say, since.

     My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me
and cheer my solitude. The confinement brought me exceedingly low--it is
wearisome to a stirring, active body; but few have slighter reasons for
complaint than I had. The moment Catherine Ieft Mr. Linton's room she
appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement
usurped a minute. She neglected her meals, her studies, and her play,
and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a
warm heart, when she Ioved her father so, to give so much to me. I said
her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I
generally needed nothing after six o'clock; thus the evening was her
own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea.
And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I
remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender
fingers, instead of fancying the hue borrowed from a cold ride across
the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.