APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/wuth_heigh/CHAP_24_33

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                        CHAPTER XXIV.


At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about
the house; and on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I
asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak. We were in the
library, the master having gone to bed. She consented, rather
unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her,
I bade her please herself in the choice of what she perused. She
selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an
hour; then came frequent questions.

     "Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now? You'll
be sick keeping up so long, Ellen."

     "No, no, dear; I'm not tired," I returned continually. Perceiving
me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for
her occupation. It changed to yawning and stretching, and--
     "Ellen, I'm tired."

     "Give over, then, and talk," I answered.

     That was worse. She fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch
till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with
sleep, judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she
inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient
still, and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a
headache and left me. I thought her conduct odd; and having remained
alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were
better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of upstairs
in the dark. No Catherine could I discover upstairs, and none below. The
servants affirmed they had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar's door;
all was silence. I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle,
and seated myself in the window.

     The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and
I reflected that she might possibly have taken it into her head to walk
about the garden for refreshment. I did detect a figure creeping along
the inner fence of the park, but it was not my young mistress. On its
merging into the light I recognized one of the grooms. He stood a
considerable period, viewing the carriage-road through the grounds, then
started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and
reappeared presently leading miss's pony; and there she was, just
dismounted, and walking by its side. The man took his charge stealthily
across the grass towards the stable. Cathy entered by the casement
window of the drawing-room, and glided noiselessly up to where I awaited
her. She put the door gently to, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her
hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her
mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself. The surprise petrified
her an instant; she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood
fixed.

     "My dear Miss Catherine," I began, too vividly impressed by her
recent kindness to break into a scold, "where have you been riding out
at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale?
Where have you been? Speak!"

     "To the bottom of the park," she stammered. "I didn't tell a tale."

     "And nowhere else?" I demanded.

     "No," was the muttered reply.

     "O Catherine!" I cried sorrowfully. "You know you have been doing
wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to me. That does
grieve me. I'd rather be three months ill than hear you frame a
deliberate lie."

     She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round
my neck.

     "Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry," she said. "Promise
not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth. I hate to hide it."

     We sat down in the window-seat. I assured her I would not scold,
whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she
commenced,--
     "I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going
a day since you fell ill, except thrice before and twice after you left
your room. I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every eve

ning, and to put her back in the stable. You mustn't scold him either,
mind. I was at the Heights by halfpast six, and generally stayed till
half-past eight, and then galloped home. It was not to amuse myself that
I went; I was often wretched all the time. Now and then I was happy -
once in a week perhaps. At first I expected there would be sad work
persuading you to let me keep my word to Linton, for I had engaged to
call again next day when we quitted him; but as you stayed upstairs on
the morrow, I escaped that trouble. While Michael was refastening the
lock of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and
told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick and
couldn't come to the Grange, and how papa would object to my going; and
then I negotiated with him about the pony. He is fond of reading, and he
thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he offered, if I would lend
him books out of the library, to do what I wished; but I preferred
giving him my own, and that satisfied him better.

     "On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits, and Zillah
(that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and
told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayer-meeting, and Hareton
Earnshaw was off with his dogs - robbing our woods of pheasants, as I
heard afterwards - we might do what we liked. She brought me some warm
wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good-natured; and Linton
sat in the arm-chair, and I in the little rocking-chair on the
hearth-stone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to
say. We planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer. I
needn't repeat that, because you would call it silly.

     "One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the
pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning
till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the
bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high
up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and
cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness. Mine
was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and
bright white clouds flitting rapidly above, and not only larks, but
throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouing ou.t music on
every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool, dusky
dells, but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to
the breeze, and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and
wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all
to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be
only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall
asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to
grow very snappish. At last we agreed to try both, as soon as the right
weather came; and then we kissed each other and were friends.

     "After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its
smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in if
we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us,
and we'd have a game at blind-man's buff. She should try to catch us;

you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn't. There was no pleasure in it,
he said. But he consented to play at ball with me. We found two in a
cupboard, among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores,
and shuttlecocks. One was marked C. and the other H. I wished to have
the C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for
Heathcliff, his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't
like it. I beat him constantly, and he got cross again, and coughed, and
returned to his chair. That night, though, he easily recovered his
good-humour. He was charmed with two or three pretty songs - your songs,
Ellen; and when I was obliged to go he begged and entreated me to come
the following evening, and I promised. Minny and I went flying home as
light as air, and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet darling
cousin till morning.

     "On the morrow I was sad, partly because you were poorly, and
partly that I wished my father knew and approved of my excursions; but
it was beautiful moonlight after tea, and as I rode on the gloom
cleared. I shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself; and,
what delights me more, my pretty Linton will. I trotted up their garden,
and was turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me,
took my bridle, and bade me go in by the front entrance. He patted
Minny's neck, and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he
wanted me to speak to him. I only told him to leave my horse alone, or
else it would kick him. He answered in his vulgar accent, 'It wouldn't
do mitch hurt if it did,' and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was
half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door,
and as he raised the latch he looked up to the inscription above, and
said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation,--
     " 'Miss Catherine, I can read yon now.'

     " 'Wonderful!' I exclaimed. 'Pray let us hear you; you are grown
clever.'

     "He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name, 'Hareton
Earnshaw.'

     " 'And the flgures?' I cried encouragingly, perceiving that he came
to a dead halt.

     " 'I cannot tell them yet,' he answered.

     " 'Oh, you dunce!' I said, laughing heartily at his failure.

     "The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl
gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my
mirth - whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was,
contempt. I settled his doubts by suddenly retrieving my gravity and
desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him. He
reddened - I saw that by the moonlight - dropped his hand from the
latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity. He imagined
himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, be cause he could
spell his own name, and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think
the same."

     "Stop, Miss Catherine dear!" I interrupted. "I shall not scold, but
I don't like your conduct there. If you had remembered that Hareton was
your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how
improper it was to behave in that way. At least, it was praiseworthy
ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton, and probably
he did not learn merely to show off. You had made him ashamed of his
ignorance before, I have no doubt, and he wished to remedy it and please
you. To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. Had you
been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude? He was as
quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were, and I'm hurt that he
should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so
unjustly."

     "Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you?" she exclaimed,
surprised at my earnestness. "But wait, and you shall hear if he conned
his A B C to please me, and if it were worth while being civil to the
brute. I entered. Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to
welcome me.

     " 'I'm ill to-night, Catherine, love,' he said; 'and you must have
all the talk, and let me listen. Come and sit by me. I was sure you
wouldn't break your word, and I'll make you promise again before you
go.'

     "I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke
softly, and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way. I
had brought some of my nicest books for him. He asked me to read a
little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door
open, having gathered venom with reflection. He advanced direct to us,
seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat.

     " 'Get to thy own room!' he said, in a voice almost inarticulate
with passion; and his face looked swelled and furious. 'Take her there
if she comes to see thee; thou shalln't keep me out of this. Begone wi'
ye both!'

     "He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing
him into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly
longing to knock me down. I was afraid for a moment, and I let one
volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out. I heard a
malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious
Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering.

     " 'I wer sure he'd sarve ye out! He's a grand lad! He's getten t'
raight sperrit in him! He knaws - ay, he knaws as weel as I do - who sud
be t' maister yonder! Ech, ech, ech! He made ye skift properly! Ech,
ech, ech!'

     " 'Where must we go?' I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old
wretch's mockery.

     "Linton was white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen - oh
no! He looked frightful, for his thin face and large eyes were wrought
into an expression of frantic, powerless fury. He grasped the handle of
the door, and shook it; it was fastened inside.

     " 'If you don't let me in I'll kill you! if you don't let me in
I'll kill you!' he rather shrieked than said. 'Devil! devil! I'll kill
you! I'll kill you!'

     "Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again.

     " 'Thear, that's t' father!' he cried. 'That's father! We've allas
summut o' either side in us. Niver heed, Hareton, lad - dunnut be
'feared - he cannot get at thee!'

     "I took hold of Linton's hands and tried to pull him away, but he
shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed. At last his cries were
choked by a dreadful fit of coughing. Blood gushed from his mouth, and
he fell on the ground. I ran into the yard, sick with terror, and called
for Zillah as loud as I could. She soon heard me. She was milking the
cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work she inquired
what there was to do. I hadn't breath to explain. Dragging her in, I
looked about for Linton. Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief
he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing upstairs. Zillah
and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and
said I shouldn't go in - I must go home. I exclaimed that he had killed
Linton, and I would enter. Joseph locked the door, and declared I
should do 'no sich stuff,' and asked me whether I were 'bahn to be as
mad as him.' I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared. She
affirmed he would be better in a bit, but he couldn't do with that
shrieking and din; and she took me and nearly carried me into the house.

     "Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head. I sobbed and wept
so that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such
sympathy with stood opposite, presuming every now and then to bid me
'wisht,' and denying that it was his fault; and finally, frightened by
my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in
prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to
hide his cowardly agitation. Still I was not rid of him. When at length
they compelled me to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the
premises, he suddenly issued from the shadow of the roadside, and
checked Minny and took hold of me.

     " 'Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved,' he began, 'but it's rayther
too bad -  - '

     "I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder
me. He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home
more than half out of my senses.

     "I didn't bid you good-night that evening, and I didn't go to
Wuthering Heights the next. I wished to go exceedingly, but I was
strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead,
sometimes, and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering
Hareton. On the third day I took courage - at least I couldn't bear
longer suspense, and stole off once more. I went at five o'clock, and
walked, fancying I might manage to creep into the house and up to
Linton's room unobserved. However, the dogs gave notice of my approach.
Zillah received me, and saying 'the lad was mending nicely,' showed me
into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy,
I beheld Linton laid on a little sofa, reading one of my books. But he
would neither speak to me nor look at me through a whole hour, Ellen; he
has such an unhappy temper. And what quite confounded me, when he did
open his mouth it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the
uproar, and Hareton was not to blame! Unable to reply, except
passionately, I got up and walked from the room. He sent after me a
faint 'Catherine!' He did not reckon on being answered so. But I
wouldn't turn back; and the morrow was the second day on which I stayed
at home, nearly determined to visit him no more. But it was so miserable
going to bed and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that
my resolution melted into air before it was properly formed. It had
appeared wrong to take the journey once, now it seemed wrong to refrain.
Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny; I said 'Yes,' and
considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the hills. I was
forced to pass the front windows to get to the court; it was no use
trying to conceal my presence.

     " 'Young master is in the house,' said Zillah, as she saw me making
for the parlour. I went in. Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the
room directly. Linton sat in the great armchair half asleep. Walking up
to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true,--
     " 'As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose
to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last
meeting. Let us say good-bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no
wish to see me, and that he mustn't invent any more falsehoods on the
subject.'

     " 'Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine,' he answered. 'You
are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better. Papa talks enough
of my defects and shows enough scorn of me to make it natural I should
doubt myself. I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he
calls me frequently; and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate
everybody! I am worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost
always, and if you choose you may say good-bye; you'll get rid of an
annoyance. Only, Catherine, do me this justice: believe that if I might
be as sweet, and as kind, and as good as you are, I would be - as
willingly, and more so, than as happy and as healthy. And believe that
your kindness has made me love you deeper than if I deserved your love;
and though I couldn't and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret
it and repent it, and shall regret and repent it till I die!'

     "I felt he spoke the truth, and I felt I must forgive him; and
though he should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again. We
were reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed - not
entirely for sorrow, yet I was sorry Linton had that distorted nature.
He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease
himself. I have always gone to his little parlour since that night,
because his father returned the day after.

     "About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we
were the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled -
now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings; but
I've learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as
the latter. Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me; I have hardly seen him
at all. Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him
abusing poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before. I can't
tell how he knew of it, unless he listened. Linton had certainly behaved
provokingly. However, it was the business of nobody but me, and I
interrupted Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so. He
burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view
of the matter. Since then I've told Linton he must whisper his bitter
things. Now, Ellen, you have heard all. I can't be prevented from going
to Wuthering Heights except by inflicting misery on two people; whereas,
if you'll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of
none. You'll not tell, will you? It will be very heartless if you do."

     "I'll make up my mind on that point by to-morrow, Miss Catherine,"
I replied. "It requires some study; and so I'll leave you to your rest,
and go think it over."

     I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence, walking straight
from her room to his, and relating the whole story, with the exception
of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton. Mr.
Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me.
In the morning Catherine learned my betrayal of her confidence, and she
learned also that her secret visits were to end. In vain she wept and
writhed against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on
Linton. All she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and
give him leave to come to the Grange when he pleased, but explaining
that he must no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights.
Perhaps, had he been aware of his nephew's disposition and state of
health, he would have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation.


                        CHAPTER XXV.


These things happened last winter, sir," said Mrs. Dean - "hardly more
than a year ago. Last winter I did not think, at another twelve months'
end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them!
Yet who knows how long you'll be a stranger? You're too young to rest
always contented, living by yourself, and I some way fancy no one could
see Catherine Linton and not love her. You smile; but why do you look so
lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me
to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why -  - "

     "Stop, my good friend!" I cried. "It may be very possible that I
should love her, but would she love me? I doubt it too much to venture
my tranquillity by running into temptation. And then my home is not
here. I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was
Catherine obedient to her father's commands?"

     "She was," continued the housekeeper. "Her affection for him was
still the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger - he
spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid
perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that
he could bequeath to guide her. He said to me a few days afterwards,--
     " 'I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell me sincerely
what you think of him. Is he changed for the better, or is there a
prospect of improvement as he grows a man?'

     " 'He's very delicate, sir,' I replied, 'and scarcely likely to
reach manhood; but this I can say, he does not resemble his father. And
if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be
beyond her control, unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent.
However, master, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him,
and see whether he would suit her. It wants four years and more to his
being of age.'

     Edgar sighed, and walking to the window, looked out towards
Gimmerton Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone
dimly, and we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and
the sparely scattered gravestones.

     "I've prayed often," he half soliloquized, "for the approach of
what is coming, and now I begin to shrink and fear it. I thought the
memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less
sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or
possibly weeks, to be carried up and laid in its lonely hollow. Ellen,
I've been very happy with my little Cathy; through winter nights and
summer days she was a living hope at my side. But I've been as happy
musing by myself among those stones, under that old church, lying
through the long June evenings on the green mound of her mother's grave,
and wishing, yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it. What can
I do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I'd not care one moment for
Linton being Heathcliff's son, nor for his taking her from me, if he
could console her for my loss. I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his
ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing. But should Linton
be unworthy - only a feeble tool to his father--I cannot abandon her to
him. And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant spirit, I must
persevere in making her sad while I live, and leaving her solitary when
I die. Darling! I'd rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth
before me."

     "Resign her to God as it is, sir," I answered; "and if we should
lose you - which may He forbid - under His providence I'll stand her
friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl; I
don't fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty
are always finally rewarded."

     Spring advanced, yet my master gathered no real strength, though he
resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her inexperienced
notions this itself was a sign of convalescence. And then his cheek was
often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt sure of his recovery.
On her seventeenth birthday he did not visit the churchyard. It was
raining, and I observed,--
     "You'll surely not go out to-night, sir?" He answered,--
     "No, I'll defer it this year a little longer."

     He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him;
and had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would
have permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he returned an
answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the
Grange; but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to
meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personaliy to petition that his
cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided.

     That part of his letter was simple and probably his own. Heathcliff
knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company, then.

     "I do not ask," he said, "that she may visit here, but am I never
to see her because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you
forbid her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her towards the
Heights, and let us exchange a few words in your presence. We have done
nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me - you
have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself. Dear uncle, send me a
kind note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except
at Thrushcross Grange. I believe an interview would convince you that my
father's character is not mine. He affirms I am more your nephew than
his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine,
she has excused them, and for her sake you should also. You inquire
after my health. It is better; but while I remain cut off from all hope,
and doomed to solitude or the society of those who never did and never
will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?"

     Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his
request, because he could not accompany Catherine. He said in summer
perhaps they might meet. Meantime he wished him to continue writing at
intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able
by letter, being well aware of his hard position in his family. Linton
complied, and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all
by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations; but his father
kept a sharp watch over him, and of course insisted on every line that
my master sent being shown. So, instead of penning his peculiar personal
sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his
thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from
his friend and love, and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an
interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with
empty promises.

     Cathy was a powerful ally at home, and between them they at length
persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk
together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors
nearest the Grange - for June found him still declining. Though he had
set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he
had a natural desire that she might retain - or at least return in a
short time to--the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only
prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir. He had no idea
that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself, nor had any one,
I believe. No doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master
Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part,
began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually
rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed
so earnest in pursuing his object. I could not picture a father treating
a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned
Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness, his
efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling
plans were threatened with defeat by death.

                        CHAPTER XXVI.


Summer was already past its prime when Edgar reluctantly yielded his
assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first
ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day, devoid of sunshine,
but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain; and our place of
meeting had been fixed at the guidestone by the crossroads. On arriving
there, however, a little herd-boy, dispatched as a messenger, told us
that--
     "Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights, and he'd be
mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further."

     "Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,"
I observed. "He bade us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at
once."

     "Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,"
answered my companion; "our excursion shall lie towards home."

     But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile
from his own door, we found he had no horse, and we were forced to
dismount and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath awaiting our
approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he
walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--

     "Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this
morning. How ill you do look!"

     Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment. She changed the
ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm, and the congratulation
on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry whether he were
worse than usual.

     "No; better - better!" he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand
as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly
over her, the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the
languid expression they once possessed.

     "But you have been worse," persisted his cousin--
     "worse than when I saw you last. You are thinner, and -  - "

     "I'm tired," he interrupted hurriedly. "It is too hot for walking;
let us rest here. And in the morning I often feel sick. Papa says I grow
so fast."

     Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her.

     "This is something like your paradise," said she, making an effort
at cheerfulness. "You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the
place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there
are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow, it is nicer than
sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park and
try mine."

     Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of, and he had
evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His
lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity
to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not
conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his
whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into
fondness had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish
temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and
more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling
consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an
insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a
punishment than a gratification to endure our company, and she made no
scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal unexpectedly
roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of
agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would
remain another half-hour at least.

     "But I think," said Cathy, "you'd be more comfortable at home than
sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and
songs, and chatter. You have grown wiser than I in these six months; you
have little taste for my diversions now - or else, if I could amuse you,
I'd willingly stay."

     "Stay to rest yourself," he replied. "And, Catherine, don't think
or say that I'm very unwell. It is the heavy weather and heat that make
me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me. Tell
uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?"

     "I'll tell him that you say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you
are," observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of
what was evidently an untruth.

     "And be here again next Thursday," continued he, shunning her
puzzled gaze. "And give him my thanks for permitting you to come - my
best thanks, Catherine. And - and if you did meet my father, and he
asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely
silent and stupid. Don't look sad and downcast, as you are doing; he'll
be angry."

     "I care nothing for his anger," exclaimed Cathy, imagining she
would be its object.

     "But I do," said her cousin, shuddering. "Don't provoke him against
me, Catherine, for he is very hard."

     "Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?" I inquired.

     "Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to
active hatred?"

     Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and after keeping her seat
by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily
on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of
exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for
bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me. She did
not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and
annoy.

     "Is it half an hour now, Ellen?" she whispered in my ear at last.
"I can't tell why we should stay. He's asleep, and papa will be wanting
us back."

     "Well, we must not leave him asleep," I answered.

     "Wait till he wakes, and be patient. You were mighty eager to set
off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated."

     "Why did he wish to see me?" returned Catherine.

     "In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in
his present curious mood. It's just as if it were a task he was
compelled to perform - this interview - for fear his father should scold
him. But I'm hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure,
whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance.
And though I'm glad he's better in health, I'm sorry he's so much Iess
pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me."

     "You think he is better in health, then?" I said.

     "Yes," she answered, "because he always made such a great deal of
his sufferings, you know. He is not tolerably well, as he told me to
tell papa; but he's better, very likely."

     "There you differ with me, Miss Cathy," I remarked.

     "I should conjecture him to be far worse."

     Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and
asked if any one had called his name.

     "No," said Catherine, "unless in dreams. I cannot conceive how you
manage to doze out of doors, in the morning."

     "I thought I heard my father," he gasped, glancing up to the
frowning nab above us. "You are sure nobody spoke?"

     "Quite sure," replied his cousin. "Only Ellen and I were disputing
concerning your health. Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we
separated in winter? If you be, I'm certain one thing is not stronger -
your regard for me. Speak! Are you?"

     The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered,

     "Yes, yes, I am!" And still under the spell of the imaginary voice,
his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner.

     Cathy rose. "For to-day we must part," she said.

     "And I won't conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our
meeting, though I'll mention it to nobody but you - not that I stand in
awe of Mr. Heathcliff."

     "Hush!" murmured Linton; "for God's sake, hush! He's coming." And
he clung to Catherine's arm, striving to detain her; but at that
announcement she hastily disengaged herself and whistled to Minny, who
obeyed her like a dog.

     "I'll be here next Thursday," she cried, springing to the saddle.
"Good-bye. - Quick, Ellenl" And so we left him, scarcely conscious of
our departure, so absorbed was he in anticipating his father's approach.

     Before we reached home, Catherine's displeasure softened into a
perplexed sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague,
uneasy doubts about Linton's actual circumstances, physical and social,
in which I partook, though I counselled her not to say much, for a
second journey would make us better judges. My master requested an
account of our ongoings. His nephew's offering of thanks was duly
delivered, Miss Cathy gently touching on the rest. I also threw little
light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide and what to
reveal.

                        CHAPTER XXVII.


Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth
rapid alteration of Edgar Linton's state. The havoc that months had
previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours. Catherine
we would fain have deluded yet, but her own quick spirit refused to
delude her; it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful
probability, gradually ripening into certainty. She had not the heart to
mention her ride when Thursday came round. I mentioned it for her, and
obtained permission to order her out of doors; for the library, where
her father stopped a short time daily - the brief period he could bear
to sit up - and his chamber, had become her whole world. She grudged
each moment that did not find her bending over his pillow or seated by
his side. Her countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my
master gladly dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a
happy change of scene and society, drawing comfort from the hope that
she would not now be left entirely alone after his death.

     He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall,
that, as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in
mind, for Linton's litters bore few or no indications of his defective
characters. And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from
correcting the error, asking myself what good there would be in
disturbing his last moments with information that he had neither power
nor opportunity to turn to account.

     We deferred our excursion till the afternoon - a golden afternoon
of August, every breath from the hills so full of life that it seemed,
whoever respired it, though dying, might revive. Catherine's face was
just like the landscape - shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid
succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more
transient; and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that
passing forgetfulness of its cares.

     We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected
before. My young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was
resolved to stay a very little while, I had better hold the pony and
remain on horseback; but I dissented. I wouldn't risk losing sight of
the charge committed to me a minute, so we climbed the slope of heath
together. Master Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this
occasion - not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it
looked more like fear.

     "It is late," he said, speaking short and with difficulty. "Is not
your father very ill? I thought you wouldn't come."

     "Why won't you be candid?" cried Catherine, swallowing her
greeting. "Why cannot you say at once you don't want me? It is strange,
Linton, that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose,
apparently, to distress us both, and for no reason besides."

     Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half
ashamed; but his cousin's patience was not sufficient to endure this
enigmatical behaviour.

     "My father is very ill," she said; "and why am I called from his
bedside? Why didn't you send to absolve me from my promise when you
wished I wouldn't keep it? Come! I desire an explanation; playing and
trifling are completely banished out of my mind, and I can't dance
attendance on your affectations now!"

     "My affectations!" he murmured; "what are they? For Heaven's sake,
Catherine, don't look so angryl Despise me as much as you please. I am a
worthless, cowardly wretch - I can't be scorned enough; but I'm too mean
for your anger. Hate my father, and spare me for contempt."

     "Nonsense!" cried Catherine in a passion. "Foolish, silly boy! And
there! he trembles, as if I were really going to touch him! You needn't
bespeak contempt, Linton; anybody will have it spontaneously at your
service. Get off! I shall return home. It is folly dragging you from the
hearthstone, and pretending - what do we pretend? Let go my frock! If I
pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn
such pity. - Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is.
 - Rise, and don't degrade yourself into an abject reptile--don't!"

     With streaming face and an expression of agony Linton had thrown
his nerveless frame along the ground. He seemed convulsed with exquisite
terror.

     "Oh!" he sobbed, "I cannot bear it! Catherine, Catherine, I'm a
traitor too, and I dare not tell you! But leave me, and I shall be
kiljed! Dear Catherine, my life is in your hands; and you have said you
loved me, and if you did, it wouldn't harm you. You'll not go then,
kind, sweet, good Catherine? And perhaps you will consent
 - and he'll let me die with you!"

     My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise
him. The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and
she grew thoroughly moved and alarmed.

     "Consent to what?" she asked. "To stay? Tell me the meaning of this
strange talk, and I will. You contradict your own words and distract me.
Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart.
You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you? You wouldn't let any enemy
hurt me, if you could prevent it? I'll believe you are a coward for
yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend."

     "But my father threatened me," gasped the boy, clasping his
attenuated fingers, "and I dread him - I dread him! I dare not tell!"

     "Oh, well," said Catherine, with scornful compassion, "keep your
secret. I'm no coward. Save yourself. I'm not afraid."

     Her magnanimity provoked his tears. He wept wildly, kissing her
supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out. I was
cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should
never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my goodwill, when,
hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff
almost close upon us, descending the Heights. He didn't cast a glance
towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton's
sobs to be audible, but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed
to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn't avoid doubtiing,
he said,--
     "It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly. How are you
at the Grange? Let us hear. The rumour goes," he added in a lower tone,
"that Edgar Linton is on his deathbed; perhaps they exaggerate his
illness?"

     "No. My master is dying," I replied; "it is true enough. A sad
thing it will be for us all, but a blessing for him."

     "How long will he last, do you think?" he asked.

     "I don't know," I said.

     "Because," he continued, looking at the two young people, who were
fixed under his eye - Linton ap peared as if he could not venture to
stir or raise his head, and Catherine could not move on his
account--"because that lad yonder seems determined to beat me, and I'd
thank his uncle to be quick and go before him. Hullo! has the whelp been
playing that game long? I did give him some lessons about snivelling. Is
he pretty lively with Miss Linton generally?"

     "Lively? No; he has shown the greatest distress," I answered. "To
see him, I should say that, instead of rambling with his sweetheart on
the hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor."

     "He shall be in a day or two," muttered Heathcliff. "But first -  -
Get up, Linton! get up!" he shouted.
     "Don't grovel on the ground there. Up, this moment!"

     Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless
fear, caused by his father's glance towards him, I suppose; there was
nothing else to produce such humiliation. He made several efforts to
obey, but his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell
back again with a moan. Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean
against a ridge of turf.

     "Now," said he, with curbed ferocity, "I'm getting angry, and if
you don't command that paltry spirit of yours -  - Damn you! get up
directly!"

     "I will, father," he panted. "Only let me alone, or I shall faint.
I've done as you wished, I'm sure. Cathernie will tell you that I -
that I - have been cheerful - Ah! keep by me, Catherine. Give me your
hand."

     "Take mine," said his father. "Stand on your feet. There now;
she'll lend you her arm. That's right; look at her. - You would imagine
I was the devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror. Be so kind
as to walk home with him, will you? He shudders if I touch him."

     "Linton dear!" whispered Catherine, "I can't go to Wuthering
Heights; papa has forbidden me. He'll not harm you. Why are you so
afraid?"

     "I can never re-enter that house," he answered. "I'm not to
re-enter it without you."

     "Stop!" cried his father. "We'll respect Catherine's filial
scruples - Nelly, take him in, and l'll follow your advice concerning
the doctor without delay."

     "You'll do well," replied I. "But I must remain with my mistress;
to mind your son is not my business."

     "You are very stiff," said Heathcliff - "I know that; but you'll
force me to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your
charity. - Come, then, my hero. Are you willing to return, escorted by
me?"

     He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile
being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her
to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial.
However I disapproved, I couldn't hinder her. Indeed, how could she have
refused him herself? What was filling him with dread we had no means of
discerning; but there he was, powerless under its gripe, and any
addition seemed capable of shocking him into idiocy. We reached the
threshold. Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had
conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately, when
Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed,--
     "My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly, and I have a mind
to be hospitable to-day. Sit down, and allow me to shut the door."

     He shut and locked it also. I started.

     "You shall have tea before you go home," he added. "I am by myself.
Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are
off on a journey of pleasure; and though I'm used to being alone, I'd
rather have some interesting company, if I can get it.
 - Miss Linton, take your seat by him. I give you what I have; the
present is hardly worth accepting, but I have nothing else to offer. It
is Linton I mean. How she does stare! It's odd what a savage feeling I
have to anything that seems afraid of me. Had I been born where laws are
less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow
vivisection of those two as an evening's amusement."

     He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, "By
hell, I hate them!"

     "I'm not afraid of you!" exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear
the latter part of his speech. She stepped close up, her black eyes
flashing with passion and resolution. "Give me that key. I will have
it!" she said. "I wouldn't eat or drink here if I were starving."

     Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table. He
looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness, or possibly
reminded by her voice and glance of the person from whom she had
inherited it. She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in
getting it out of his loosened fingers; but her action recalled him to
the present - he recovered it speedily.

     "Now, Catherine Linton," he said, "stand off, or I shall knock you
down, and that will make Mrs. Dean mad."

     Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its
contents again. "We will go!" she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts
to cause the iron muscles to relax; and finding that her nails made no
impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply. Heathcliff glanced at
me a glance that kept me from interfering a moment. Catherine was too
intent on his fingers to notice his face. He opened them suddenly, and
resigned the object of dispute; but ere she had well secured it, he
seized her with the liberated hand, and pulling her on his knee,
administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides
of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been
able to fall.

     At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously. "You
villain!" I began to cry, "you villain!" A touch on the chest silenced
me. I am stout, and soon put out of breath; and what with that and the
rage, I staggered dizzily back, and felt ready to suffocate or to burst
a blood-vessel. The scene was over in two minutes. Catherine, released,
put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not
sure whether her ears were off or on. She trembled like a reed, poor
thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered.

     "I know how to chastise children, you see," said the scoundrel
grimly, as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped
to the floor. "Go to Linton now, as I told you, and cry at your ease. I
shall be your father to-morrow - all the father you'll have in a few
days - and you shall have plenty of that. You can bear plenty; you're no
weakling. You shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a
temper in your eyes again!"

     Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her
burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. Her cousin had shrunk into a
corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I
dare say, that the correction had lighted on another than him. Mr.
Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made
the tea himself. The cups and saucers were laid ready. He poured it out,
and handed me a cup.

     "Wash away your spleen," he said. "And help your own naughty pet
and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. I'm going out to
seek your horses."

     Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit
somewhere. We tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside. We
looked at the windows; they were too narrow for even Cathy's little
figure.

     "Master Linton," I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, "you
know what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or
I'll box your ears, as he has done your cousin's."

     "Yes, Linton, you must tell," said Catherine. "It was for your sake
I came, and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse."

     "Give me some tea - I'm thirsty - and then I'll tell you," he
answered. - "Mrs. Dean, go away. I don't like you standing over me -
Now, Catherine, you are letting your tears fall into my cup. I won't
drink that. Give me another."

     Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face. I felt
disgusted at the little wretch's composure, since he was no longer in
terror for himself. The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as
soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights, so I guessed he had been
menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us
there; and that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears.

     "Papa wants us to be married," he continued, after sipping some of
the liquid. "And he knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now, and he's
afraid of my dying if we wait; so we are to be married in the morning,
and you are to stay here all night; and if you do as he wishes, you
shall return home next day, and take me with you."

     "Take you with her, pitiful changeling!" I exclaimed. "You marry!
Why, the man is mad, or he thinks us fools every one. And do you imagine
that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself
to a little perishing monkey like you? Are you cherishing the notion
that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a
husband? You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your
dastardly puling tricks; and - don't look so silly now! I've a very good
mind to shake you severely for your contemptible treachery and your
imbecile conceit."

     I did give him a slight shaking, but it brought on the cough, and
he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine
rebuked me.

     "Stay all night? No," she said, looking slowly round. "Ellen, I'll
burn that door down, but I'll get out."

     And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly,
but Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again. He clasped her in
his two feeble arms, sobbing,--

     "Won't you have me, and save me? - not let me come to the Grange? O
darling Catherine, you mustn't go and leave, after all! You must obey my
father--you must!"

     "I must obey my own," she replied, "and relieve him from this cruel
suspense. The whole night! What would he think? He'll be distressed
already. I'll either break or burn a way out of the house. Be quiet!
You're in no danger. But if you hinder me -  - Linton, I love papa
better than you!"

     The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored to the
boy his coward's eloquence. Catherine was near distraught; still she
persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn,
persuading him to subdue his selfish agony. While they were thus
occupied, our gaoler re-entered.

     "Your beasts have trotted off," he said, "and - -Now, Linton!
snivelling again? What has she been doing to you? Come, come; have done,
and get to bed. In a month or two, my lad, you'll be able to pay her
back her present tyrannies with a vigorous hand. You're pining for pure
love, are you not? - nothing else in the world; and she shall have you!
There, to bed! Zillah won't be here to-night. You must undress yourself.
Hush! hold your noise! Once in your own room, I'll not come near you.
You needn't fear. By chance you've managed tolerably. I'll look to the
rest."

     He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass;
and the latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which
suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze.
The lock was resecured. Heathcliff approached the fire, where my
mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up, and instinctively
raised her hand to her cheek. His neighbourhood revived a painful
sensation. Anybody else would have been incapable of regarding the
childish act with sternness, but he scowled on her and muttered,--
     "Oh! you are not afraid of me? Your courage is well disguised; you
seem damnably afraid!"

     "I am afraid now," she replied, "because, if I stay, papa will be
miserable; and how can I endure making him miserable when he - when he -
-  Mr. Heathcliff, let me go home! I promise to marry Linton; papa would
like me to, and I love him. Why should you wish to force me to do what
I'll willingly do of myself?"

     "Let him dare to force you!" I cried. "There's law in the land -
thank God there is! - though we be in an out-of-the-way place. I'd
inform if he were my own son. And it's felony, without benefit of
clergy."

     "Silence!" said the ruffian. "To the devil with your clamour! I
don't want you to speak. - Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably
in thinking your father will be miserable; I shall not sleep for
satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your
residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than in forming
me that such an event would follow. As to your promise to marry Linton,
I'll take care you shall keep it, for you shall not quit this place till
it is fulfilled."

     "Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I'm safe!" exclaimed Catherine,
weeping bitterly; "or marry me now. Poor papa! - Ellen, he'll think
we're lost. What shall we do?"

     "Not he! He'll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off
for a little amusement," answered Heathcliff. "You cannot deny that you
entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to
the contrary. And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement
at your age, and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that
man only your father. Catherine, his happiest days were over when your
days began. He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did,
at least), and it would just do if he cursed you as he went out of it.
I'd join him. I don't love you. How should I? Weep away. As far as I can
see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter, unless Linton make
amends for other losses; and your provident parent appears to fancy he
may. His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly. In his
last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his, and kind to her when
he got her. Careful and kind - that's paternal. But Linton requires his
whole stock of care and kindness for himself. Linton can play the little
tyrant well. He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, if their
teeth be drawn and their claws pared. You'll be able to tell his uncle
fine tales of his kindness when you get home again, I assure you."

     "You're right there!" I said: "explain your son's character; show
his resemblance to yourself; and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think
twice before she takes the cockatrice!"

     "I don't much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now," he
answered, "because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and
you along with her, till your master dies. I can detain you both, quite
concealed, here. If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and
you'll have an opportunity of judging."

     "I'll not retract my word," said Catherine. "I'll marry him within
this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards. Mr. Heathcliff,
you're a cruel man, but you're not a fiend; and you won't, from mere
malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness. If papa thought I had left
him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live?
I've given over crying, but I'm going to kneel here at your knee; and
I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face till you look
back at me! No, don't turn away - do look! You'll see nothing to provoke
you. I don't hate you. I'm not angry that you struck me. Have you never
loved anybody in all your life, uncle? never? Ah! you must look once.
I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me."

     "Keep your eft's fingers off, and move, or I'll kick you!" cried
Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. "I'd rather be hugged by a snake.
How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I detest you!"

     He shrugged his shoulders, shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh
crept with aversion, and thrust back his chair, while I got up and
opened my mouth to commence a downright torrent of abuse. But I was
rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence by a threat that I
should be shown into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered.
It was growing dark. We heard a sound of voices at the garden gate. Our
host hurried out instantly. He had his wits about him; we had not. There
was a talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone.

     "I thought it had been your cousin Hareton," I observed to
Catherine. "I wish he would arrive. Who knows but he might take our
part?"

     "It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange," said
Heathcliff, overhearing me. "You should have opened a lattice and called
out; but I could swear that chit is glad you didn't. She's glad to be
obliged to stay, I'm certain."

     At learning the chance we had missed we both gave vent to our grief
without control, and he allowed us to wail on till nine o'clock. Then he
bade us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah's chamber; and I
whispered my companion to obey. Perhaps we might con trive to get
through the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight. The
window, however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was
safe from our attempts, for we were fastened in as before. We neither of
us lay down. Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched
anxiously for morning, a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain
to my frequent entreaties that she would try to rest. I seated myself in
a chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many
derelictions of duty, from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes
of my employers sprang. It was not the case in reality, I am aware, but
it was in my imagination that dismal night; and I thought Heathcliff
himself less guilty than I.

     At seven o'clock he came and inquired if Miss Linton had risen. She
ran to the door immediately, and answered, "Yes." "Here, then," he said,
opening it, and pulling her out. I rose to follow, but he turned the
lock again. I demanded my release.

     "Be patient," he replied. "I'll send up your breakfast in a while."

     I thumped on the panels and rattled the latch angrily, and
Catherine asked why I was still shut up? He answered, I must try to
endure it another hour; and they went away. I endured it two or three
hours. At length I heard a footstep - not Heathcliff's.

     "I've brought you something to eat," said a voice. "Oppen t' door!"


     Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last
me all day.

     "Tak it," he added, thursting the tray into my hand.

     "Stay one minute," I began.

     "Nay," cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could
pour forth to detain him.

     And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the
next night, and another, and another. Five nights and four days I
remained altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton, once every morning; and
he was a model of a gaoler - surly and dumb, and deaf to every attempt
at moving his sense of justice or compassion.

                        CHAPTER XXVIII.


On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approached,
lighter and shorter, and this time the person entered the room. It was
Zillah, donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her
head, and a willow basket swung to her arm.

     "Eh, dear, Mrs. Dean!" she exclaimed. "Well, there is a talk about
you at Gimmerton. I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse
marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you'd been found, and
he'd lodged you here! What! and you must have got on an island, sure.
And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean? But
you're not so thin--you've not been so poorly, have you?"

     "Your master is a true scoundrel!" I replied. "But he shall answer
for it. He needn't have raised that tale. It shall all be laid bare."

     "What do you mean?" asked Zillah. "It's not his tale. They tell
that in the village, about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to
Earnshaw, when I come in, 'Eh, they's queer things, Mr. Hareton,
happened since I went off. It's a sad pity of that likely young lass,
and cant Nelly Dean.' He stared. I thought he had not heard aught, so I
told him the rumour. The master listened, and he just smiled to himself
and said, 'If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah.
Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can tell her to
flit when you go up; here is the key. The bog water got into her head,
and she would have run home quite flighty, but I fixed her till she came
round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be
able, and carry a message from me that her young lady will follow in
time to attend the squire's funeral.' "

     "Mr. Edgar is not dead?" I gasped. "O Zillah, Zillah!"

     "No, no. Sit you down, my good mistress," she replied; "you're
right sickly yet. He's not dead. Dr. Kenneth thinks he may last another
day. I met him on the road and asked."

     Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things and hastened
below, for the way was free. On entering the house I looked about for
some one to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with
sunshine, and the door stood wide open, but nobody seemed at hand. As I
hesitated whether to go off at once or return and seek my mistress, a
slight cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle,
sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements
with apathetic eyes. "Where is Miss Catherine?" I demanded sternly,
supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence by catching him
thus alone. He sucked on like an innocent,

     "Is she gone?" I said.

     "No," he replied; "she's upstairs. She's not to go; we won't let
her."

     "You won't let her, little idiot!" I exclaimed. "Direct me to her
room immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply."

     "Papa would make you sing out if you attempted to get there," he
answered. "He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine. She's my wife, and
it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says she hates me and
wants me to die, that she may have my money. But she shan't have it, and
she shan't go home - she never shall! She may cry and be sick as much as
she pleases!"

     He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids as if he meant
to drop asleep.

     "Master Heathcliff," I resumed, "have you forgotten all Catherine's
kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when
she brought you books and sang you songs, and came many a time through
wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you
would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times
too good to you, and now you believe the lies your father tells, though
you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That's fine
gratitude, is it not?"

     The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from
his lips.

     "Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?" I
continued. "Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know
that you will have any. And you say she's sick, and yet you leave her
alone up there in a strange house--you who have felt what it is to be so
neglected! You could pity your own sufferings, and she pitied them too,
but you won't pity hers! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see - an
elderly woman, and a servant merely; and you, after pretending such
affection  and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you
have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you're a heartless,
selfish boy!"

     "I can't stay with her," he answered crossly. "I'll not stay by
myself. She cries so I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I
say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to
strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he
left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed
for vexation that I couldn't sleep."

     "Is Mr. Heathcliff out?" I inquired, perceiving that the wretched
creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin's mental tortures.

     "He's in the court," he replied, "talking to Dr. Kenneth, who says
uncle is dying, truly, at last. I'm glad, for I shall be master of the
Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn't
hers. It's mine. Papa says everything she has is mine. All her nice
books are mine. She offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and
her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room and let her out; but
I told her she had nothing to give - they were all, all mine. And then
she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should
have that - two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on
the other uncle, when they were young. That was yesterday. I said they
were mine too, and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing
wouldn't let me; she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked out; that
frightens her. She heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and
divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait. The other she
attempted to hide; but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained
it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me.
She refused, and he--he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain,
and crushed it with his foot."

     "And were you pleased to see her struck?" I asked, having my
designs in encouraging his talk.

     "I winked," he answered. "I wink to see my father strike a dog or a
horse; he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first. She deserved
punishing for pushing me. But when papa was gone she made me come to the
window, and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth,
and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of
the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she
has never spoken to me since, and I sometimes think she can't speak for
pain. I don't like to think so; but she's a naughty thing for crying
continually, and she looks so pale and wild, I'm afraid of her."

     "And you can get the key if you choose?" I said.

     "Yes, when I am upstairs," he answered. "But I can't walk upstairs
now."

     "In what apartment is it?" I asked.

     "Oh," he cried, "I shan't tell you where it is! It is our secret.
Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know. There! you've tired me;
go away, go away!" And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut his
eyes again.

     I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and
bring a rescue for my young lady from the Grange. On reaching it, the
astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was
intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or
three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar's door; but
I bespoke the announcement of it myself. How changed I found him even in
those few days! He lay an image of sadness and resignation waiting his
death. Very young he looked; though his actual age was thirty-nine, one
would have called him ten years younger, at least. He thought of
Catherine, for he murmured her name. I touched his hand and spoke.

     "Catherine is coming, dear master," I whispered.

     "She is alive and well, and will be here, I hope, tonight."

     I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence. He half rose
up, looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon.
As soon as he recovered I related our compulsory visit and detention at
the Heights. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in, which was not quite
true. I uttered as little as possible against Linton, nor did I describe
all his father's brutal conduct, my intentions being to add no
bitterness, if I could help it, to his already overflowing cup.

     He divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the
personal property, as well as the estate, to his son, or rather himself;
yet why he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master,
because ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world
together. However, he felt that his will had better be altered. Instead
of leaving Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put
it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her
children, if she had any, after her. By that means it could not fall to
Mr. Heathcliff, should Linton die.

     Having received his orders, I dispatched a man to fetch the
attorney, and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my
young lady of her gaoler. Both parties were delayed very late. The
single servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out
when he arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his
re-entrance; and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in
the village that must be done, but he would be at Thrushcross Grange
before morning. The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought
word that Catherine was ill - too ill to quit her room - and Heathcliff
would not sufler them to see her. I scolded the stupid fellows well for
listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master, resolving
to take a whole bevy up to the Heights at daylight, and storm it
literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us. Her
father shall see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be killed
on his own door-stones in trying to prevent it!

     Happily I was spared the journey and the trouble. I had gone
downstairs at three o'clock to fetch a jug of water, and was passing
through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front
door made me jump. "Oh! it is Green," I said, recollecting myself--"only
Green"; and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but
the knock was repeated, not loud, and still importunately. I put the jug
on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon shone
clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress
sprang on my neck, sobbing,--
     "Ellen! Ellen! is papa alive?"

     "Yes!" I cried - "yes, my angel, he is! God be thanked, you are
safe with us again!"

     She wanted to run, breathless as she was, upstairs to Mr. Linton's
room, but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink,
and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron.
Then I said I must go first and tell of her arrival, imploring her to
say she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon
comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured
me she would not complain.

     I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside
the chamber door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed
then. All was composed, however. Catherine's despair was as silent as
her father's joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance, and he fixed
on her features his raised eyes, that seemed dilating with ecstasy.

     He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood; he died so. Kissing her cheek, he
murmured,--
     "I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us," and
never stirred or spoke again, but continued that rapt, radiant gaze till
his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None could have
noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a
struggle.

     Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were
too weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose;
she sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that
deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It
was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinner time appeared the
lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how
to behave. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff; that was the cause of
his delay in obeying my master's summons. Fortunately, no thought of
worldly affairs crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his
daughter's arrival.

     Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about
the place. He gave all the servants but me notice to quit. He would have
carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar
Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel with his
family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud
protestations against any infringement of its directions. The funeral
was hurried over. Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to
stay at the Grange till her father's corpse had quitted it.

     She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur
the risk of liberating her. She heard the men I sent disputing at the
door, and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff's answer. It drove her
desperate. Linton, who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon
after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father
reascended. He had the cunning to unlock and relock the door, without
shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep
with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once. Catherine stole out
before break of day. She dare not try the doors, lest the dogs should
raise an alarm. She visited the empty chambers and examined their
windows, and luckily lighting on her mother's, she got easily out of
its lattice, and on to the ground by means of the fir-tree close by. Her
accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his
timid contrivances.

                        CHAPTER XXIX.


The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the
library, now musing mournfully, one of us despairingly, on our loss, now
venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future.

     We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine
would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange - at least
during Linton's life - he being allowed to join her there, and I to
remain as housekeeper. That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement
to be hoped for, and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the
prospect of retaining my home and my employment, and, above all, my
beloved young mistress, when a servant - one of the discarded ones, not
yet departed - rushed hastily in, and said

     "that devil Heathcliff" was coming through the court; should he
fasten the door in his face?

     If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not
time. He made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name. He was
master, and availed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight
in without saying a word. The sound of our informant's voice directed
him to the library. He entered, and motioning him out, shut the door.

     It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest,
eighteen years before. The same moon shone through the window, and the
same autumn landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle,
but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall -
the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband.
Heathcliff advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person
either. There was the same man, his dark face rather sallower and more
composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other
difference. Catherine had risen, with an impulse to dash out, when she
saw him.

     "Stop!" he said, arresting her by the arm. "No more runnings away!
Where would you go? I'm come to fetch you home, and I hope you will be a
dutiful daughter, and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I
was embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the
business - be's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him - but you'll
see by his look that he has received his due. I brought him down one
evening, the day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and
never touched him afterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to
ourselves. In two hours I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since
then my presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost, and I fancy he
sees me often, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks
in the night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me;
and whether you like your precious mate or not, you must come. He's your
concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you."

     "Why not let Catherine continue here," I pleaded, "and send Master
Linton to her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them. They can only
be a daily plague to your unnatural heart."

     "I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange," he answered,

     "and I want my children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass
owes me her services for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in
luxury and idleness after Linton has gone. Make haste and get ready now,
and don't oblige me to compel you."

     "I shall," said Catherine. "Linton is all I have to love in the
world, and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to
me, and me to him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to
hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me."

     "You are a boastful champion," replied Heathcliff,

     "but I don't like you well enough to hurt him; you shall get the
full benefit of the torment as long as it lasts. It is not I who will
make him hateful to you; it is his own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as
gall at your desertion and its consequences. Don't expect thanks for
this noble devotion. I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of
what he would do if he were as strong as I. The inclination is there,
and his very weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for
strength."

     "I know he has a bad nature," said Catherine; "he's your son. But
I'm glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for
that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and
however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of
thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You are
miserable, are you not?--lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?
Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you when you die. I wouldn't be
you."

     Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph. She seemed to have
made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw
pleasure from the griefs of her enemies.

     "You shall be sorry to be yourself presently," said her
father-in-law, "if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and
get your thingsl"

     She scornfully withdrew. In her absence I began to beg for Zillah's
place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would
suffer it on no account. He bade me be silent; and then, for the first
time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the
pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said,--
     "I shall have that home - not because I need it, but -  - " He
turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a
better word, I must call a smile - "I'll tell you what I did yesterday.
I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth
off her coffin-lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have
stayed there. When I saw her face again
 - it is hers yet - he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would
change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin
loose, and covered it up--not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been
soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid
there, and slide mine out too. I'll have it made so. And then, by the
time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which."

     "You are very wicked Mr. Heathcliff!" I exclaimed. "Were you not
ashamed to disturb the dead?"

     "I disturbed nobody, Nelly," he replied, "and I gave some ease to
myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now, and you'll have a
better chance of keeping me underground when I get there. Disturbed her!
No! She has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years,
incessantly, remorselessly, till yesternight; and yesternight I was
tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with
my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers."

     "And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you
have dreamt of then?" I said.

     "Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still," he answered.
"Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a
transformation on raising the lid, but I'm better pleased that it should
not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a

distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling
would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild
after she died, and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return
to me her spirit. I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction
that they can and do exist among us. The day she was buried there came a
fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as
winter; all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband
would wander up the den so late, and no one else had business to bring
them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the
sole barrier between us, I said to myself, 'I'll have her in my arms
again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills me,
and if she be motionless, it is sleep.' I got a spade from the
toolhouse, and began to delve with all my might. It scraped the coffin.
I fell to work with my hands. The wood commenced cracking about the
screws. I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I
heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and
bending down. 'If I can only get this off,' I muttered, 'I wish they may
shovel in the earth over us both!' and I wrenched at it more desperately
still. There was another sigh close at my ear. I appeared to feel the
warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living
thing in flesh and blood was by; but as certainly as you perceive the
approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be
discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there - not under me, but
on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through
every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at
once, unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me; it remained while
I refilled the grave, and led me home. You may laugh if you will, but I
was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could
not help talking to her. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to
the door. It was fastened, and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and
my wife opposed my entrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out
of him, and then hurrying upstairs to my room and hers. I looked round
impatiently; I felt her by me; I could almost see her, and yet I could
not! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning,
from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse. I had not
one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And
since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of
that intolerable torture--infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch
that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed
to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton it
seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I
should meet her coming in; when I went from home I hastened to return.
She must be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain. And when I slept in
her chamber, I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there, for the
moment I closed my eyes she was either outside the window, or sliding
back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head
on the same pillow as she did when a child, and I must open my lids to
see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night, to be
always disappointed. It racked me. I've often groaned aloud, till that
old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the
fiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified - a little.
It was a strange way of killing - not by inches, but by fractions of
hairbreadths - to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen
years!"

     Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead. His hair clung to it,
wet with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the
fire, the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples, diminishing
the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of
trouble and a painful appearance of mental tensioo towards one absorbing
subject. He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence. I didn't
like to hear him talk. After a short period he resumed his meditation on
the picture, took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate
it at better advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered,
announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled.

     "Send that over to-morrow," said Heathcliff to me; then turning to
her, he added, "You may do without your pony. It is a fine evening, and
you'll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights, for what journeys you take
your own feet will serve you. Come along."

     "Good-bye, Ellen!" whispered my dear little mistress. As she kissed
me, her lips felt like ice. "Come and see me, Ellen; don't forget."

     "Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!" said her new father.
"When I wish to speak to you I'll come here. I want none of your prying
at my house."

     He signed her to precede him, and casting back a look that cut my
heart, she obeyed. I watched them from the window walk down the garden.
Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his, though she disputed the act
at first evidently, and with rapid strides he hurried her into the
alley, whose trees concealed them.

                        CHAPTER XXX.


I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she
left. Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her,
and wouldn't let me pass. He said Mrs. Linton was "thrang," and the
master was not in. Zillah has told me something of the way they go on,
otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living. She thinks
Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk. My
young lady asked some aid of her when she first came, but Mr. Heathcliff
told her to follow her own business, and let his daughter-in-law look
after herself; and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrow-minded,
selfish woman. Catherine evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect,
repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her
enemies as securely as if she had done her some great wrong. I had a
long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one
day when we forgathered on the moor; and this is what she told me.

     "The first thing Mrs. Linton did," she said, "on her arrival at the
Heights, was to run upstairs, without even wishing good-evening to me
and Joseph; she shut herself into Linton's room, and remained till
morning. Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she
entered the house and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent
for; her cousin was very ill.

     " 'We know that,' answered Heathcliff; 'but his life is not worth a
farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him.'

     " 'But I cannot tell how to do,' she said; 'and if nobody will help
me, he'll die.'

     " 'Walk out of the room,' cried the master, 'and let me never hear
a word more about him. None here care what becomes of him. If you do,
act the nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him.'

     "Then she began to bother me, and I said I'd had enough plague with
the tiresome thing. We each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on
Linton; Mr. Heathcliff bade me leave that labour to her.

     "How they managed together I can't tell. I fancy he fretted a great
deal, and moaned hisseln night and day; and she had precious little
rest, one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes. She sometimes
came into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain
beg assistance. But I was not going to disobey the master - I never dare
disobey him, Mrs. Dean; and though I thought it wrong that Kenneth
should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or
complain, and I always refused to meddle. Once or twice, after we had
gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again and seen her sitting
crying on the stairs' top; and then I've shut myself in quick, for fear
of being moved to interfere. I did pity her then, I'm sure; still I
didn't wish to lose my place, you know.

     "At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened
me out of my wits by saying,--
     " 'Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying. I'm sure he is, this
time. Get up instantly, and tell him.'

     "Having uttered this speech, she vanished again. I lay a quarter of
an hour listening and trembling. Nothing stirred - the house was quiet.

     "She's mistaken, I said to myself. He's got over it. I needn't
disturb them. And I began to doze. But my sleep was marred a second time
by a sharp ringing of the bell - the only bell we have, put up on
purpose for Linton; and the master called to me to see what was the
matter, and inform them that he wouldn't have that noise repeated.

     "I delivered Catherine's message. He cursed to himself, and in a
few minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room.
I followed. Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside with her hands
folded on her knees. Her father-in-law went up, held the light to
Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him. Afterwards he turned to
her.

     " 'Now, Catherine,' he said, 'how do you feel?'

     "She was dumb.

     " 'How do you feel, Catherine?' he repeated.

     " 'He's safe, and I'm free,' she answered. 'I should feel well,
but,' she continued, with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, 'you have
left me so long to struggle against death alone that I feel and see only
death. I feel like death.'

     "And she looked like it too. I gave her a little wine. Hareton and
Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and
heard our talk from outside, now entered. Joseph was fain, I believe, of
the lad's removal; Hareton seemed a thought bothered, though he was more
taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton. But the
master bade him get off to bed again; we didn't want his help. He
afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to
return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself.

     "In the morning he sent me to tell her she must come down to
breakfast. She had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she
was ill, at which I hardly wondered. I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he
replied,--
     " 'Well, let her be till after the funeral, and go up now and then
to get her what is needful; and as soon as she seems better, tell me.' "

     Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah, who visited
her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her
attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled.

     Heathcliff went up once to show her Linton's will. He had
bequeathed the whole of his and what had been her movable property to
his father. The poor creature was threatened or coaxed into that act
during her week's absence when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor,
he could not meddle with. However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept
them in his wife's right and his also--I suppose legally. At any rate,
Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.

     "Nobody," said Zillah, "ever approached her door, except that once,
but I; and nobody asked anything about her. The first occasion of her
coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon. She had cried out,
when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in
the cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and
Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she
heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in
black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a
Quaker. She couldn't comb them out.

     "Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays." The kirk, you
know, has no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean, and they call the
Methodists' or Baptists' place (I can't say which it is) at Gimmerton a
chapel.

     "Joseph has gone," she continued, "but I thought proper to bide at
home. Young folks are always the better for an elder's overlooking; and
Hareton, with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour. I
let him know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had
been always used to see the Sabbath respected, so he had as good leave
his guns and bits of indoor work alone while she stayed. He coloured up
at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes. The train-oil
and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to
give her his company, and I guessed by his way he wanted to be
presentable; so, laughing as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I
offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion. He grew
sullen, and began to swear.

     "Now, Mrs. Dean," Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her
manner, "you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton, and
happen you're right, but I own I should love well to bring her pride a
peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her
now? She's as poor as you or I - poorer, I'll be bound. You're saving,
and I'm doing my little all that road."

     Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid, and she flattered him
into a good humour. So, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former
insults, he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's
account.

     "Missis walked in," she said, "as chill as an icicle, and as high
as a princess. I got up and offered her my seat in the armchair. No, she
turned up her nose at my civility. Earnshaw rose too and bade her come
to the settle, and sit close by the fire; he was sure she was starved.

     " 'I've been starved a month and more,' she answered, resting on
the word as scornful as she could.

     "And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from
both of us. Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and
discovered a number of books in the dresser. She was instantly upon her
feet again, stretching to reach them; but they were too high up. Her
cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage
to help her. She held her frock, and he filled it with the first that
came to hand.

     "That was a great advance for the lad. She didn't thank him, still
he felt gratifled that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to
stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what
struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained. Nor was
he daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his
finger. He contented himself with going a bit farther back, and looking
at her instead of the book. She continued reading, or seeking for
something to read. His attention became, by degrees, quite centreed in
the study of her thick, silky curls. Her face he couldn't see, and she
couldn't see him. And, perhaps not quite awake to what he did, but
attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to
touching. He put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it
were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started
round in such a taking.

     " 'Get away this moment! How dare you touch me! Why are you
stopping there?' she cried in a tone of disgust. 'I can't endure you!
I'll go upstairs again if you come near me.'

     "Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do. He sat
down in the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her
volumes another half-hour. Finally Earnshaw crossed over and whispered
to me,--
     " 'Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I'm stalled of doing
naught; and I do like - I could like to hear her. Dunnot say I wanted
it, but ask of yourseln.'

     " 'Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am,' I said
immediately. 'He'd take it very kind - he'd be much obliged.'

     "She frowned, and looking up, answered,--
     " 'Mr. Hareton and the whole set of you will be good enough to
understand that I reject any pretence at kindness you have the hypocrisy
to offer! I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you!
When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of
your faces, you all kept off. But I won't complain to you. I'm driven
down here by the cold, not either to amuse you or enjoy your society.'

     " 'What could I ha' done?' began Earnshaw. 'How was I to blame?'

     " 'Oh, you are an exception,' answered Mrs. Heathcliff. 'I never
missed such a concern as you.'

     " 'But I offered more than once, and asked,' he said, kindling up
at her pertness - 'I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you -  - '

     " 'Be silent! I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have
your disagreeable voice in my ear,' said my lady.

     "Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him, and unslinging his
gun, restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer. He talked
now freely enough, and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude;
but the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to
condescend to our company more and more. However, I took care there
should be no further scorning at my good nature. Ever since I've been as
stiff as herself, and she has no lover or liker among us; and she does
not deserve one, for, let them say the least word to her, and she'll
curl back without respect of any one. She'll snap at the master himself,
and as good as dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the
more venomous she grows."

     At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to
leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live
with me; but Mr. Heath cliff would as soon permit that as he would set
up Hareton in an independent house, and I can see no remedy at present,
unless she could marry again, and that scheme it does not come within my
province to arrange.

                          * * * * *

     Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story. Notwithstanding the doctor's
prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and though it be only the
second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or
two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights to inform my landlord that I
shall spend the next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look
out for another tenant to take the place after October. I would not pass
another winter here for much.

                        CHAPTER XXXI.


Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I
proposed. My housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to
her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not
conscious of anything odd in her request. The front door stood open, but
the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit. I knocked, and
invoked Earnshaw from among the garden beds. He unchained it, and I
entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took
particular notice of him this time; but then he does his best,
apparently, to make the least of his advantages.

     I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home. He answered, No, but he
would be in at dinner-time. It was eleven o'clock, and I announced my
intention of going in and waiting for him, at which he immediately flung
down his tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a
substitute for the host.

     We entered together. Catherine was there, making herself useful in
preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal. She looked more
sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly
raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same
disregard to common forms of politeness as before, never returning my
bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.

     "She does not seem so amiable," I thought, "as Mrs. Dean would
persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true, but not an angel."

     Earnshaw surlily bade her remove her things to the kitchen. "Remove
them yourself," she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done,
and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures
of birds and beasts out of the turnip parings in her lap. I approached
her, pretending to desire a view of the garden, and, as I fancied,
adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton;
but she asked aloud, "What is that?" and chucked it off.

     "A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the
Grange," I answered, annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful
lest it should be imagined a missive of my own. She would gladly have
gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her. He seized and
put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first.
Thereat Catherine silently turned her face from us, and very stealthily
drew out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her
cousin, after struggling a while to keep down his softer feelings,
pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as
ungraciously as he could. Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then
she put a few questions to me concerning the inmates, rational and
irrational, of her former home, and gazing towards the hills, murmured
in soliloquy, -

     "I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be
climbing up there! Oh! I'm tired--I'm stalled,Hareton!" And she leant
her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh,
and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness, neither caring nor
knowing whether we remarked her.

     "Mrs. Heathcliff," I said, after sitting some time mute, "you are
not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours - so intimate that I think
it strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies
of talking about and praising you, and she'll be greatly disappointed if
I return with no news of or from you, except that you received her
letter and said nothing."

     She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,--
     "Does Ellen like you?"

     "Yes, very well," I replied hesitatingly.

     "You must tell her," she continued, "that I would answer her
letter, but I have no materials for writing--not even a book from which
I might tear a leaf."

     "No books!" I exclaimed. "How do you contrive to live here without
them? if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with a large
library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange. Take my books away, and
I should be desperate."

     "I was always reading when I had them," said Catherine; "and Mr.
Heathcliff never reads, so he took it into his head to destroy my books.
I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once I searched through
Joseph's store of theology, to his great irritation. - And once,
Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in your room - some Latin and Greek,
and some tales and poetry, all old friends. I brought the last here, and
you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love
of stealing - they are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in
the bad spirit that as you cannot enjoy them nobody else shall. Perhaps
your envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But I've
most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot
deprive me of those."

     Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of
his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of
her accusations.

     "Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge," I
said, coming to his rescue. "He is not envious but emulous of your
attainments. He'll be a clever scholar in a few years."

     "And he wants me to sink into a dunce meantime," answered
Catherine. "Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and
pretty blunders he makes. - -L - I wish you would repeat 'Chevy Chase'
as you did yesterday; it was extremely funny. I heard you, and I heard
you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then
cursing because you couldn't read their explanations."

     The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be
laughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove
it. I had a similar notion; and remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his
first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared,
I observed,--
     "But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each
stumbled and tottered on the threshold. Had our teachers scorned instead
of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet."

     "Oh!" she replied, "I don't wish to limit his acquirements. Still,
he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to
me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations. Those books, both prose
and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to
have them debased and profaned in his mouth. Besides, of all, he has
selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out
of deliberate malice." Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute. He
laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was
no easy task to suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of
relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway,
surveying the external prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and
left the room, but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in
his hands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming,--

     "Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!"

     "I won't have them now," she answered. "I shall connect them with
you, and hate them."

     She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read
a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner, then laughed and threw it
from her. "And listen," she continued provokingly, commencing a verse of
an old ballad in the same fashion.

     But his self-love would endure no further torment. I heard, and not
altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The
little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though
uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had
of balancing the account and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He
afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his
countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I
fancied that as they consumed he recalled the pleasure they had already
imparted and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated
from them, and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies
also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments
till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her
approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and, instead of
guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to
raise himself had produced just the contrary result.

     "Yes, that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from
them!" cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the
conflagration with indignant eyes.

     "You'd better hold your tongue now," he answered fiercely.

     And his agitation precluded further speech. He advanced hastily to
the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed
the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered
him, and laying hold of his shoulder, asked,--
     "What's to do now, my lad?"

     "Naught, naught," he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and
anger in solitude.

     Heathcliff gazed after him and sighed.

     "It will be odd if I thwart myself," he muttered, unconscious that
I was behind him. "But when I look for his father in his face, I find
her every day more. How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to
see him."

     He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a
restless, anxious expression in his countenance I had never remarked
there before, and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on
perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen,
so that I remained alone.

     "I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood," he said, in
reply to my greeting, "from selfish motives partly. I don't think I
could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wondered more
than once what brought you here."

     "An idle whim, I fear, sir," was my answer, "or else an idle whim
is going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week, and I
must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross
Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall
not live there any more."

     "Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, are
you?" he said. "But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you
won't occupy, your journey is useless. I never relent in exacting my due
from any one."

     "I'm coming to plead off nothing about it," I exclaimed,
considerably irritated. "Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now."
And I drew my notebook from my pocket.

     "No, no," he replied coolly; "you'll leave sufficient behind to
cover your debts if you fail to return. I'm not in such a hurry. Sit
down and take your dinner with us. A guest that is safe from repeating
his visit can generally be made welcome. - Catherine, bring the things
in. Where are you?"

     Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

     "You may get your dinner with Joseph," muttered Heathcliff aside,
"and remain in the kitchen till he is gone."

     She obeyed his directions very punctually; perhaps she had no
temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she
probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.

     With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and
Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless
meal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to
get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton
received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to
the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.

     "How dreary life gets over in that house!" I reflected, while
riding down the road. "What a realization of something more romantic
than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff had she
and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated
together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!"

                        CHAPTER XXXII.


l802. - This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend
in the north, and on my journey to his abode I unexpectedly came within
fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside public-house was
holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green
oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,--
     "Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allas three wick after other
folk wi' ther harvest."

     "Gimmerton!" I repeated. My residence in that locality had already
grown dim and dreamy. "Ah! I know. How far is it from this?"

     "Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills, and a rough road," he
answered.

     A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was
scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under
my own roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange
matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading
the neighbourhood again. Having rested a while, I directed my servant to
inquire the way to the village, and with great fatigue to our beasts we
managed the distance in some three hours.

     I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The gray
church looked grayer, and the lonely church yard lonelier. I
distinguished a moor sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was
sweet, warm weather
 - too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying
the delightful scenery above and below. Had I seen it nearer August I'm
sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In
winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those
glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.

     I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but
the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin,
blue wreath curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I
rode into the court. Under the porch a girl of nine or ten sat knitting,
and an old woman reclined on the house-steps, smoking a meditative pipe.

     "Is Mrs. Dean within?" I demanded of the dame.

     "Mistress Dean? Nay!" she answered, "shoo doesn't bide here; shoo's
up at th' Heights."

     "Are you the housekeeper, then?" I continued.

     "Eea, aw keep th' hause," she replied.

     "Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge
me in, I wonder? I wish to stay all night."

     "T'maister!" she cried in astonishment. "Whet! whoiver knew yah wur
coming? Yah sud ha' send word. They's nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht
t' place, nowt there isn't."

     She threw down her pipe and bustled in; the girl followed, and I
entered too. Soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover,
that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her
be composed. I would go out for a walk, and meantime she must try to
prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to
sleep in. No sweeping and dusting - only good fire and dry sheets were
necessary. She seemed willing to do her best, though she thrust the
hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker; and
malappropriated  several other articles of her craft; but I retired,
confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return. Wuthering
Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An afterthought brought
me back when I had quitted the court.

     "All well at the Heights?" I inquired of the woman.

     "Eea, f'r owt ee knaw," she answered, skurrying away with a pan of
hot cinders.

     I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it
was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made
my exit, rambling leisurely along with the glow of a sinking sun behind,
and the mild glory of a rising moon in front - one fad ing and the
other brightening - as I quitted the park and climbed the stony by-road
branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of
it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west;
but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by
that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock; it
yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed
another by the aid of my nostrils - a fragrance of stocks and
wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees.

     Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case
in a coal district, a fine, red fire illuminated the chimney. The
comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable.
But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have
plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence, and accordingly
what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the
windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and
looked and listened in consequence, being moved thereto by a mingled
sense of curiosity and envy that grew as I lingered.

     "Con-trary!" said a voice as sweet as a silver bell.

     "That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you
again. Recollect, or I'll pull your hair."

     "Contrary, then," answered another, in deep but softened tones.
"And now, kiss me for minding so well."

     "No; read it over first correctly, without a single mistake."

     The male speaker began to read. He was a young man respectably
dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome
features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering
from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled
him by a smart slap on the cheek whenever its owner detected such signs
of inattention. Its owner stood behind, her light, shining ringlets
blending at intervals with his brown locks, as she bent to superintend
his studies; and her face - it was lucky he could not see her face, or
he would never have been so steady. I could, and I bit my lip in spite
at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something
besides staring at its smiting beauty.

     The task was done - not free from further blunders; but the pupil
claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses, which, however, he
generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their
conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on
the moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart,
if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I
showed my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very
mean and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen.
There was unobstructed admittance on that side also, and at the door sat
my old friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song, which was often
interrupted from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered
in far from musical accents.

     "I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev 'em swearing i' my lugs froh morn
to neeght nor hearken ye hahsiver!" said the tenant of the kitchen, in
answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. "It's a blazing shame that I
cannot oppen t' blessed Book but yah set up them glories to Sattan, and
all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld! Oh!
ye're a raight nowt, and shoo's another, and that poor lad'll be lost
atween ye. Poor lad!" he added, with a groan; "he's witched, I'm sartin
on't! O Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer
rullers!"

     "No, or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose,"
retorted the singer. "But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a
Christian, and never mind me. This is 'Fairy Annie's Wedding' - a bonny
tune; it goes to a dance."

     Mrs. Dean was about to recommence when I advanced; and recognizing
me directly, she jumped to her feet, crying,--
     "Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood! How could you think of returning in
this way? All's shut up at Thrushcross Grange. You should have given us
notice."

     "I've arranged to be accommodated there for as long as I shall
stay," I answered. "I depart again tomorrow. And how are you
transplanted here, Mrs. Dean? Tell me that."

     "Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you
went to London, and stay till you returned. But step in, pray. Have you
walked from Gimmerton this evening?"

     "From the Grange," I replied. "And while they make me lodging room
there, I want to finish my business with your master, because I don't
think of having another opportunity in a hurry."

     "What business, sir?" said Nelly, conducting me into the house.
"He's gone out at present, and won't return soon."

     "About the rent," I answered.

     "Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle," she
observed, "or rather with me. She has not learned to manage her affairs
yet, and I act for her; there's nobody else."

     I looked surprised.

     "Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see," she
continued.

     "Heathcliff dead!" I exclaimed, astonished. "How long ago?"

     "Three months since. But sit down, and let me take your hat, and
I'll tell you all about it. Stop; you have had nothing to eat, have
you?"

     "I want nothing; I have ordered supper at home. You sit down too. I
never dreamt of his dying. Let me hear how it came to pass. You say you
don't expect them back for some time - the young people?"

     "No. I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles, but
they don't care for me. At least have a drink of our old ale; it will do
you good; you seem weary."

     She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph
asking whether "it warn't a crying scandal that she should have
followers at her time of life. And then, to get them jocks out o' t'
maister's cellar! He fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it."

     She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing
a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming
earnestness. And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of
Heathcliff's history. He had a "queer" end, as she expressed it.

     I was summoned to Wuthering Heights within a fortnight of your
leaving us, she said, and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My
first interview with her grieved and shocked me - she had altered so
much since our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons
for taking a new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted
me, and he was tired of seeing Catherine. I must make the little parlour
my sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged
to see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement;
and by degrees I smuggled over a great number of books and other
articles that had formed her amusement at the Grange, and flattered
myself we should get on in tolerable comfort. The delusion did not last
long. Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and
restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden,
and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring
drew on; for another, in following the house I was forced to quit her
frequently, and she complained of loneliness. She preferred quarrelling
with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude. I did
not mind their skirmishes; but Hareton was often obliged to seek the
kitchen also .when the master wanted to have the house to himself; and
though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly
joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him, and
though he was always as sullen and silent as possible, after a while she
changed her behaviour and became incapable of letting him alone, talking
at him, commenting on his stupidity and idleness, expressing her wonder
how he could endure the life he lived, how he could sit a whole evening
staring into the fire and dozing.

     "He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?" she once observed, "or a
cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally. What
a blank, dreary mind he must have! - Do you ever dream, Hareton? And if
you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me!"

     Then she looked at him, but he would neither open his mouth nor
look again.

     "He's perhaps dreaming now," she continued. "He twitched his
shoulder as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen."

     "Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you upstairs, if you don't
behave," I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his
fist, as if tempted to use it.

     "I know why Hareton never speaks when I am in the kitchen," she
exclaimed on another occasion. "He is afraid I shall laugh at him.
Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once, and
because I laughed he burned his books and dropped it. Was he not a
fool?"

     "Were not you naughty?" I said. "Answer me that."

     "Perhaps I was," she went on, "but I did not expect him to be so
silly - Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I'll try."


     She placed one she had been perusing on his hand. He flung it off,
and muttered, if she did not give over he would break her neck.

     "Well, I shall put it here," she said - "in the table drawer; and
I'm going to bed."

     Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed.
But he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to
her great disappointment. I saw she was sorry for his persevering
sulkiness and indolence. Her conscience reproved her for frightening him
off improving himself. She had done it effectually. But her ingenuity
was at work to remedy the injury. While I ironed or pursued other such
stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would
bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me. When Hareton was
there she generally paused in an interesting part and left the book
lying about - that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a
mule, and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to
smoking with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of
the fire, the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense,
as he would have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to
disregard it. On fine evenings the latter followed his shooting
expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to
her, and ran off into the court or garden the moment I began, and as a
last resource cried and said she was tired of living - her life was
useless.

     Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had
almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment. Owing to an accident at the
commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen.
His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm,
and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The
consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and
tranquillity till he made it up again. It suited Catherine to have him
there. At any rate, it made her hate her room upstairs more than ever;
and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might
accompany me.

     On Easter Monday Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle,
and in the afternoon I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen.
Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney-corner, and my little
mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window
panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered
ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the
direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the
grate. At a notice that I could do with her no longer intercepting my
light, she removed to the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on
her proceedings, but presently I heard her begin,--
     "I've found out, Hareton, that I want - that I'm glad
 - that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not grown so
cross to me and so rough."

     Hareton returned no answer.

     "Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?" she continued.

     "Get off wi' ye!" he growled, with uncompromising gruffness.

     "Let me take that pipe," she said, cautiously advancing her hand
and abstracting it from his mouth. Before he could attempt to recover
it, it was broken and behind the fire. He swore at her and seized
another.

     "Stop," she cried; "you must listen to me first; and I can't speak
while those clouds are floating in my face."

     "Will you go to the devi!" he exclaimed ferociously,

     "and let me be!"

     "No," she persisted, "I won't. I can't tell what to do to make you
talk to me, and you are determined not to understand. When I call you
stupid, I don't mean anything. I don't mean that I despise you. Come,
you shall take notice of me, Hareton. You are my cousin, and you shall
own me."

     "I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your
damned mocking tricks!" he answered.

     "I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you
again. Side out o' t' gate now, this minute!"

     Catherine frowned and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip,
and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing
tendency to sob.

     "You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton," I
interrupted, "since she repents of her sauciness. It would do you a
great deal of good; it would make you another man to have her for a
companion."

     "A companion!" he cried, "when she hates me, and does not think me
fit to wipe her shoon! Nay! if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for
seeking her good-will any more."

     "It is not I who hate you; it is you who hate me!" wept Cathy, no
longer disguising her trouble. "You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff
does, and more."

     "You're a damned liar," began Earnshaw. "Why have I made him angry
by taking your part, then, a hundred times, and that when you sneered at
and despised me, and - -- Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder and
say you worried me out of the kitchen."

     "I didn't know you took my part," she answered, drying her eyes,
"and I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and
beg you to forgive me. What can I do besides?"

     She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He
blackened and scowled like a thundercloud, and kept his fists resolutely
clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct,
must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that
prompted this dogged conduct, for, after remaining an instant undecided,
she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The little rogue
thought I had not seen her, and drawing back, she took her former
station by the window, quite demurely. I shook my head reprovingly, and
then she blushed and whispered,--
     "Well, what should I have done, Ellen? He wouldn't shake hands, and
he wouldn't look; I must show him some way that I like him - that I want
to be friends."

     Whether the kiss convinced Hareton I cannot tell. He was very
careful, for some minutes, that his face should not be seen; and when he
did raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes.

     Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in
white paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it
to "Mr. Hareton Earnshaw," she desired me to be her ambassadress, and
convey the present to its destined recipient.

     "And tell him if he'll take it I'll come and teach him to read it
right," she said; "and if he refuse it I'll go upstairs and never tease
him again."

     I carried it, and repeated the message, anxiously watched by my
employer. Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee.
He did not strike it off either. I returned to my work. Catherine
leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle
of the covering being removed; then she stole away and quietly seated
herself beside her cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed; all his
rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him. He could not
summon courage at first to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning
look and her murmured petition,--
     "Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by
speaking that little word."

     He muttered something inaudible.

     "And you'll be my friend?" added Catherine interrogatively.

     "Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life," he answered,
"and the more ashamed the more you know me; and I cannot bide it."

     "So you won't be my friend?" she said, smiling as sweet as honey,
and creeping close up.

     I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round
again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of
the accepted book that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on
both sides, and the enemies were thenceforth sworn allies.

     The work they studied was full of costly pictures, and those and
their position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came
home. He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine
seated on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his
shoulder, and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity;
it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that
night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew as he
solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty
bank-notes from his pocketbook, the produce of the day's transactions.
At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.

     "Tak' these in to t' maister, lad," he said, "and bide there. I's
gang up to my own rahm. This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us;
we mun side out and seearch another."

     "Come, Catherine," I said, "we must 'side out' too. I've done my
ironing. Are you ready to go?"

     "It is not eight o'clock," she answered, rising unwillingly -
"Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I'll bring
some more to-morrow."

     "Ony books that yah leave I shall tak' into th' hahse," said
Joseph, "and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean. Soa yah may plase
yerseln."

     Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers, and smiling
as she passed Hareton, went singing up stairs, lighter of heart, I
venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before, except,
perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton.

     The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly, though it encountered
temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish,
and my young lady was no philosopher and no paragon of patience; but
both their minds tending to the same point - one loving and desiring to
esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed - they
contrived in the end to reach it.

     You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's
heart. -  But now I'm glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes
will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their
wedding-day. There won't be a happier woman than myself in England.


                        CHAPTER XXXIII.


On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his
ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I
speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me
as heretofore. She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden,
where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went
to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a
large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were
busy planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.

     I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a
brief half-hour. The black currant trees were the apple of Joseph's eye,
and she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them.

     "There! That will be all shown to the master," I exclaimed, "the
minute it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking
such liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the
head of it
 - see if we don't. - Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit
than to go and make that mess at her bidding!"

     "I'd forgotten they were Joseph's," answered Earnshaw, rather
puzzled, "but I'll tell him I did it."

     We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I held the mistress's
post in making tea and carving, so I was indispensable at table.
Catherine usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton, and
I presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than
she had in her hostility.

     "Now, mind you don't talk with and notice your cousin too much,"
were my whispered instructions as we entered the room. "It will
certainly annoy Mr. Heathcliff, and he'll be mad at you both."

     "I'm not going to," she answered.

     The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses
in his plate of porridge.

     He dared not speak to her there - he dared hardly look; and yet she
went on teasing till he was twice on the point of being provoked to
laugh. I frowned, and then she glanced toward the master, whose mind was
occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced;
and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity.
Afterwards she turned and recommenced her nonsense. At last Hareton
uttered a smothered laugh. Mr. Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly
surveyed our faces. Catherine met it with her accustomed look of
nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred.

     "It is well you are out of my reach," he exclaimed.

     "What fiend possesses you to stare back at me continually with
those infernal eyes? Down with them! and don't remind me of your
existence again. I thought I had cured you of laughing."

     "It was me," muttered Hareton.

     "What do you say?" demanded the master.

     Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession. Mr.
Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast
and his interrupted musing. We had nearly finished, and the two young
people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further
disturbance during that sitting, when Joseph appeared at the door,
revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage
committed on his precious shrubs was detected. He must have seen Cathy
and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws
worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech
difficult to understand, he began,--
     "I mun hev my wage, and I mun goa. I hed aimed to dee wheare I'd
sarved fur sixty year, and I thowt I'd lug my books up into t' garret,
and all my bits o' stuff, and they sud hev t' kitchen to theirseln, for
t' sake o' quietness. It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I
thowt I could do that. But nah; shoo's taan my garden fro' me, and by
th' heart, maister, I cannot stand it. Yah may bend to th' yoak, and ye
will; I noan used to't, and an old man doesn't sooin get used to new
barthens. I'd rayther arn my bite an' my sup wi' a hammer in th' road."


     "Now, now, idiot," interrupted Heathcliff, "cut it short! What's
your grievance? I'll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly. She
may thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care."

     "It's noan Nelly," answered Joseph. "I sudn't shift for Nelly,
nasty ill nowt as shoo is. Thank God! shoo cannot stale t' sowl o'
nob'dy! Shoo wer niver soa handsome but what a body mud look at her
'bout winking. It's yon flaysome, graceless quean that's witched our lad
wi' her bold een and her forrard ways, till -  -  Nay, it fair brusts my
heart! He's forgotten all I've done for him, and made on him, and goan
and riven up a whole row o' t' grandest currant trees i' t' garden!" And
here he lamented outright, unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries
and Earnshaw's ingratitude and dangerous condition.

     "Is the fool drunk?" asked Mr. Heathcliff. - "Hareton, is it you
he's finding fault with?"

     "I've pulled up two or three bushes," replied the young man, "but
I'm going to set 'em again."

     "And why have you pulled them up?" said the master.

     Catherine wisely put in her tongue.

     "We wanted to plant some flowers there," she cried.

     "I'm the only person to blame, for I wished him to do it."

     "And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the
place?" demanded her father-in-law, much surprised - "And who ordered
you to obey her?" he added, turning to Hareton.

     The latter was speechless. His cousin replied,--
     "You shouldn't grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornament, when
you have taken all my land!"

     "Your land, insolent slut! You never had any," said Heathcliff.

     "And my money," she continued, returning his angry glare, and
meantime biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.

     "Silence!" he exclaimed. "Get done, and begone!"

     "And Hareton's land, and his money," pursued the reckless thing.
"Hareton and I are friends now, and I shall tell him all about you."

     The master seemed confounded a moment. He grew pale and rose up,
eyeing her all the while with an expression of mortal hate.

     "If you strike me, Hareton will strike you," she said, "so you may
as well sit down."

     "If Hareton does not turn you out of the room I'll strike him to
hell," thundered Heathcliff. "Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse
him against me? - Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen!
- I'll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!"

     Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.

     "Drag her away!" he cried savagely. "Are you staying to talk?" And
he approached to execute his own command.

     "He'll not obey you, wicked man, any more," said Catherine, "and
he'll soon detest you as much as I do."

     "Wisht! wisht!" muttered the young man reproachfully. "I will not
hear you speak so to him. Have done."

     "But you won't let him strike me?" she cried. "Come, then," he
whispered earnestly.

     It was too late. Heathcliff had caught hold of her.

     "Now, you go!" he said to Earnshaw. "Accursed witch! this time she
has provoked me when I could not bear it, and I'll make her repent it
for ever!"

     He had his hand in her hair. Hareton attempted to release her
locks, entreating him not to hurt her that once. Heathcliff's black eyes
flashed - he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces; and I was just
worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers
relaxed; he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed
intently in her face. Then he drew his hand over her eyes, stood a
moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine,
said with assumed calmness, "You must learn to avoid putting me in a
passion, or I shall really murder you some time! Go with Mrs. Dean, and
keep with her, and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton
Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you I'll send him seeking his bread
where he can get it. Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar. -
Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you! - leave me!"

     I led my young lady out. She was too glad of her escape to resist.
The other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till
dinner. I had counselled Catherine to dine upstairs, but as soon as he
perceived her vacant seat he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of
us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that
he should not return before evening.

     The two new friends established themselves in the house during his
absence, when I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin on her offering
a revelation of her father-in-law's conduct to his father. He said he
wouldn't suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement. lf he were
the devil, it didn't signify - he would stand by him; and he'd rather
she would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr. Heathcliff.
Catherine was waxing cross at this, but he found means to make her hold
her tongue by asking how she would like him to speak ill of her father.
Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master's reputation home to
himself, and was attached by ties stronger than reason could break -
chains forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen.
She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both complaints and
expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff, and confessed to me her
sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit between him and
Hareton. Indeed, I don't believe she has ever breathed a syllable, in
the latter's hearing, against her oppressor since.

     When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again,
and as busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and
teacher. I came in to sit with them after I had done my work, and I felt
so soothed and comforted to watch them that I did not notice how time
got on. You know they both appeared in a measnre my children. I had long
been proud of one, and now I was sure the other would be a source of
equal satisfaction. His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off
rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been
bred, and Catherine's sincere commendations acted as a spur to his
industry. His bright ening mind brightened his features, and added
spirit and nobility to their aspect. I could hardly fancy it the same
individual I had beheld on the day I discovered my little lady at
Wuthering Heights, after her expedition to the Crags. While I admired
and they laboured, dusk drew on, and with it returned the master. He
came upon us quite unexpectedly, entering by the front way, and had a
full view of the whole three ere we could raise our heads to glance at
him. Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter or more harmless
sight, and it will be a burning shame to scold them. The red firelight
glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with
the eager interest of children; for though he was twenty-three and she
eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn that neither
experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober, disenchanted maturity.

     They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff.
Perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar,
and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no
other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead and a certain arch
of the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or
not. With Hareton the resemblance is carried further. It is singular at
all times; then it was particularly striking, because his senses were
alert, and his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. I suppose
this resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff. He walked to the hearth in
evident agitation, but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man
- or, I should say, altered its character, for it was there yet. He
took the book from his hand and glanced at the open page, then returned
it without any observation, merely signing Catherine away. Her companion
lingered very little behind her; and I was about to depart also, but he
bade me sit still.

     "It is a poor conclusion, is it not?" he observed, having brooded a
while on the scene he had just witnessed
 - "an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and
mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of
working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power I
find the will to lift a slate of either roof has vanished! My old
enemies have not beaten me. Now would be the precise time to revenge
myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder
me. But where is the use? I don't care for striking; I can't take the
trouble to raise my hand. That sounds as if I had been labouring the
whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from
being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction,
and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

     "Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm in its shadow at
present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly
remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the only
objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me, and that
appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About her I won't speak,
and I don't desire to think, but I earnestly wish she were invisible.
Her presence invokes only maddening sensations. He moves me

differently; and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I'd never
see him again. You'll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so," he
added, making an effort to smile, "if I try to describe the thousand
forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies. But you'll
not talk of what I tell you; and my mind is so eternally secluded in
itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another.

     "Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not
a human being. I felt to him in such a variety of ways that it would
have been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first
place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with
her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my
imagination, is actually the least; for what is not connected with her
to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor
but her features are shaped in the flags. In every cloud, in every tree
- filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by
day--I am surrounded with her image. The most ordinary faces of men and
women
 - my own features - mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a
dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have
lost her. Well, Hareton's aspect was the ghost of my immortal love, of
my wild endeavours to hold my right, my degradation, my pride, my
happiness, and my anguish - --
     "But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you; only it will let
you know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no
benefit, rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer; and
it partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go
on together. I can give them no attention any more."

     "But what do you mean by a change, Mr. Heathcliff?" I said, alarmed
at his manner, though he was neither in danger of losing his senses nor
dying, according to my judgment. He was quite strong and healthy; and as
to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark
things and entertaining odd fancies. He might have had a monomania on
the subject of his departed idol, but on every other point his wits were
as sound as mine.

     "I shall not know that till it comes," he said, "I'm only half
conscious of it now."

     "You have no feeling of illness, have you?" I asked.

     "No, Nelly, I have not," he answered.

     "Then you are not afraid of death?" I pursued.

     "Afraid? No!" he replied. "I have neither a fear, nor a
presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard
constitution, and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations,
I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is
scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this
condition. I have to remind myself to breathe, almost to remind my heart
to beat. And it is like bending back a stiff spring; it is by compulsion
that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought, and by
compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead which is not associated
with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and
faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so
long and so unwaveringly that I'm convinced it will be reached - and
soon - because it has devoured my existence. I am swallowed up in the
anticipation of its fulfilment. My confessions have not relieved me, but
they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which
I show. - O God! it is a long fight, I wish it were over!"

     He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself,
till I was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience
had turned his heart to an earthly hell. I wondered greatly how it would
end. Though he seldom before had revealed his state of mind, even by
looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt. He asserted it himself;
but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have conjectured the
fact. You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood; and at the period of
which I speak he was just the same as then, only fonder of continued
solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in company.

                        CHAPTER XXXIV.


For some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at
meals, yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy.
He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing
rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed
sufficient sustenance for him.

     One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs
and out at the front door. I did not hear him re-enter, and in the
morning I found he was still away. We were in April then. The weather
was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it,
and the two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom.
After breakfast Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting
with my work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she
beguiled Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig
and arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the
influence of Joseph's complaint. I was comfortably revelling in the
spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my
young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose
roots for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr.
Heathcliff was coming in. "And he spoke to me," she added, with a
perplexed countenance.

     "What did he say?" asked Hareton.

     "He told me to begone as fast as I could," she answered. "But he
looked so different from his usual iook that I stopped a moment to stare
at him."

     "How?" he inquired.

     "Why, almost bright and cheerful. No, almost nothing - very much
excited, and wild and glad!" she replied.

     "Night-walking amuses him, then," I remarked, affecting a careless
manner - in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain
the truth of her statement, for to see the master looking glad would not
be an every-day spectacle. I framed an excuse to go in. Heathcliff stood
at the open door. He was pale, and he trembled, yet certainly he had a
strange, joyful glitter in his eyes that altered the aspect of his whole
face.

     "Will you have some breakfast?" I said. "You must be hungry
rambling about all night." I wanted to discover where he had been, but I
did not like to ask directly.

     "No, I'm not hungry," he answered, averting his head and speaking
rather contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the
occasion of his good-humour.

     I felt perplexed. I didn't know whether it were not a proper
opportunity to offer a bit of admonition.

     "I don't think it right to wander out of doors," I observed,
"instead of being in bed. It is not wise, at any rate, this moist
season. I dare say you'll catch a bad cold or a fever. You have
something the matter with you now."

     "Nothing but what I can bear," he replied, "and with the greatest
pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone. Get in, and don't annoy me."

     I obeyed, and in passing I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.

     "Yes," I reflected to myself, "we shall have a fit of illness. I
cannot conceive what he has been doing."

     That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up
plate from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous
fasting.

     "I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly," he remarked, in allusion to
my morning's speech, "and I'm ready to do justice to the food you give
me."

     He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when
the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct. He laid them on the
table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out. We saw
him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and
Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would not dine; he thought we had
grieved him some way.

     "Well, is he coming?" cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.

     "Nay," he answered; "but he's not angry. He seemed rarely pleased
indeed; only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice, and then he
bade me be off to you. He wondered how I could want the company of
anybody else."

     I set his plate to keep warm on the fender, and after an hour or
two he re-entered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer - the
same unnatural (it was unnatural) appearance of joy under his black
brows; the same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a
kind of smile; his frame shivering - not as one shivers with chill or
weakness, but as a tightstretched cord vibrates - a strong thrilling
rather than trembling.

     I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should? And I
exclaimed,--
     "Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff? You look uncommonly
animated."

     "Where should good news come from to me?" he said. "I'm animated
with hunger, and seemingly I must not eat."

     "Your dinner is here," I returned; "why won't you get it?"

     "I don't want it now," he muttered hastily. "I'll wait till supper.
And, Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other
away from me. I wish to be troubled by nobody. I wish to have this place
to myself."

     "Is there some new reason for this banishment?" I inquired. "Tell
me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff. Where were you last night? I'm
not putting the question through idle curiosity, but -  - "

     "You are putting the question through very idle curiosity," he
interrupted, with a laugh. "Yes, I'll answer it. Last night I was on the
threshold of hell. Today I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes
on it - hardly three feet to sever me. And now you'd better go. You'll
neither see nor hear anything to frighten you if you refrain from
prying."

     Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed, more
perplexed than ever.

     He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded
on his solitude, till, at eight o'clock, I deemed it proper, though
unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him. He was leaning
against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out; his face was
turned to the interior gloom. The fire had smouldered to ashes; the room
was fllled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening, and so still
that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable,
but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the
large stones which it could not cover. I uttered an ejaculation of
discontent at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the
casements, one after another, till I came to his.

     "Must I close this?" I asked, in order to rouse him, for he would
not stir.

     The light flashed on his features as I spoke. O Mr. Lockwood, I
cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view - those
deep black eyes, that smile and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me not
Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and in my terror I let the candle bend
towards the wall, and it left me in darkness.

     "Yes, close it," he replied, in his familiar voice.

     "There, that is pure awkwardness! Why did you hold the candle
horizontally? Be quick, and bring another."

     I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph,--
     "The master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire."
For I dare not go in myself again just then.

     Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went; but he brought
it back immediately with the supper-tray in his other hand, explaining
that Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till
morning. We heard him mount the stairs directly. He did not proceed to
his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed. Its
window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get
through; and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of
which he had rather we had no suspicion.

     "Is he a ghoul or a vampire?" I mused. I had read of such hideous
incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him
in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost
through his whole course, and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to
that sense of horror. "But where did he come from, the little dark
thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?" muttered Superstition, as I
dozed into unconsciousness. And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself
with imagining some fit parentage for him; and repeating my waking
meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations,
at last picturing his death and funeral, of which all I can remember is
being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription
for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and as he had no
surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content
ourselves with the single word, "Heathcliff." That came true; we were.
If you enter the kirkyard you'll read on his headstone only that, and
the date of his death.

     Dawn restored me to common-sense. I rose and went into the garden
as soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under
his window. There were none. "He has stayed at home," I thought, "and
he'll be all right to-day." I prepared breakfast for the household, as
was my usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere
the master came down, for he lay late. They preferred taking it out of
doors, under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them.

     On my re-entrance I found Mr. Heathcliff below. He and Joseph were
conversing about some farming business. He gave clear, minute directions
concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his
head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more
exaggerated. When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place
he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him. He drew it
nearer, and then rested his arms on the table and looked at the opposite
wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with
glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped
breathing during half a minute together.

     "Come now," I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, "eat
and drink that while it is hot; it has been waiting near an hour."

     He didn't notice me, and yet he smiled. I'd rather have seen him
gnash his teeth than smile so.

     "Mr. Heathcliff! master!" I cried, "don't, for God's sake, stare as
if you saw an unearthly vision."

     "Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud," he replied.

     "Turn round and tell me - are we by ourselves?"

     "Of course," was my answer - "of course we are."

     Still I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure. With
a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the
breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.

     Now I perceived he was not looking at the wall, for when I regarded
him alone it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards'
distance. And whatever it was, it communicated apparently both pleasure
and pain in exquisite extremes - at least the anguished yet raptured
expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object
was not fixed either; his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and,
even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of
his protracted abstinence from food. If he stirred to touch anything in
compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a
piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and
remained on the table, forgetful of their aim. I sat, a model of
patience, trying to attract his absorbed attentlion from its engrossing
speculation, till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not
allow him to have his own time in taking his meals, and saying that on
the next occasion I needn't wait - L might set the things down and go.
Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the
 garden path, and disappeared through the gate. The hours crept
anxiously by; another evening came. I did not retire to rest till late,
and when I did I could not sleep. He returned after midnight, and
instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath. I listened
and tossed about, and finally dressed and descended. It was too irksome
to lie there harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings.

     I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step restlessly measuring the
floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration
resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also. The only one I
couJd catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of
endearment or suffering, and spoken as one would speak to a person
present - low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had
not courage to walk straight into the apartment, but I desired to divert
him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire,
stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner
than I expected. He opened the door immediately, and said,--
     "Nelly, come here. Is it morning? Come in with your light."

     "It is striking four," I answered. "You want a candle to take
upstairs. You might have lit one at this fire."

     "No, I don't wish to go upstairs," he said. "Come in and kindle me
a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room."

     "I must blow the coals red first before I can carry any," I
replied, getting a chair and the bellows.

     He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction,
his heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for
common breathing between.

     "When day breaks I'll send for Green," he said. "I wish to make
some legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those
matters, and while I can act calmly. I have not written my will yet, and
how to leave my property I cannot determine. I wish I could annihilate
it from the face of the earth."

     "I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff," I interposed. "Let your will
be a while; you'll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet. I
never expected that your nerves would be disordered. They are at present
marvellously so, however, and almost entirely through your own fault.
The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do
take some food and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a
glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes
bloodshot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss
of sleep."

     "It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest," he replied. "I
assure you it is through no settled designs. I'll do both as soon as I
possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water
rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then
I'll rest. Well, never mind Mr. Green. As to repenting of my injustices,
I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy; and yet
I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not
satisfy itself."

     "Happy, master?" I cried. "Strange happiness! If you would hear me
without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you
happier."

     "What is that?" he asked. "Give it."

     "You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff," I said, "that from the time you
were thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life, and
probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period. You
must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space
to search it now. Could it be hurtful to send for some one (some
minister of any denomination
 - it does not matter which) to explain it, and show you how very far
you have erred from its precepts, and how unfit you will be for its
heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?"

     "I'm rather obliged than angry, Nelly," he said, "for you remind me
of the manner in which I desire to be buried. It is to be carried to the
churchyard in the eve ning. You and Hareton may, if you please,
accompany me; and mind particularly to notice that the sexton obeys my
directions concerning the two coffins. No minister need come, nor need
anything be said over me. I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven,
and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me."

     "And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by
that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?"
I said, shocked at his godless indifference. "How would you like it?"

     "They won't do that," he replied. "If they did, you must have me
removed secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically,
that the dead are not annihilated."

     As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he
retired to his den, and I breathed freer. But in the afternoon, while
Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again,
and with a wild look bade me come and sit in the house; he wanted
somebody with him. I declined, telling him plainly that his strange talk
and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be
his companion alone.

     "I believe you think me a fiend," he said, with his dismal laugh -
"something too horrible to live under a decent roof." Then turning to
Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he

added, half sneeringly, "Will you come, chuck? I'll not hurt you. No! To
you I've made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is one who won't
shrink from my company. By God, she's relentless! Oh, damn it! It's
unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear - even mine."

     He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his
chamber. Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him
groaning and murmuring to himself. Hareton was anxious to enter, but I
bade him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he
came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it
locked, and Heathcliff bade us be damned. He was better, and would be
left alone; so the doctor went away.

     The following evening was very wet - indeed it poured down till
day-dawn; and as I took my morning walk round the house I observed the
master's window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He
cannot be in bed, I thought; those showers would drench him through. He
must either be up or out. But I'll make no more ado; I'll go boldly and
look."

     Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to
unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant. Quickly pushing them
aside, I peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there, laid on his back. His eyes
met mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile. I
could not think him dead; but his face and throat were washed with rain,
the bedclothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice,
flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill. No
blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it I
could doubt no more - he was dead and stark!

     I hasped the window; I combed his black long hair from his
forehead; I tried to close his eyes - to extinguish, if possible, that
frightful, life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it.
They would not shut - they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his
parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too. Taken with another fit of
cowardice, I cried out for Joseph. Joseph shuffied up and made a noise,
but resolutely refused to meddle with him.

     "Th' divil's harried off his soul," he cried, "and he may hev his
carcass into t' bargain for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked un he looks
girning at death!" and the old sinner grinned in mockery. I thought he
intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing himself,
he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks that the
lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights. I
felt stunned by the awful event, and my memory unavoidably recurred to
former times with a sort of oppressive sadness. But poor Hareton, the
most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much. He sat by the
corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest. He pressed its hand, and
kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from
contemplating, and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs
nat urally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel.

     Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master
died. I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four
days, fearing it might lead to trouble; and then I am persuaded he did
not abstain on purpose - it was the consequence of his strange illness,
not the cause.

     We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he
wished. Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin,
comprehended the whole attendance. The six men departed when they had
let it down into the grave. We stayed to see it covered. Hareton, with a
streaming face, dug green sods and laid them over the brown mould
himself. At present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds,
and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you
ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks. There are those who
speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even
within this house. Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old
man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em, looking out of
his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death. And an odd
thing happened to me about a month ago. I was going to the Grange one
evening - a dark evening, threatening thunder; and just at the turn of
the Heights I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before
him. He was crying terribly, and I supposed the lambs were skittish and
would not be guided.

     "What is the matter, my little man?" I asked.

     "There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab," he
blubbered, "un I darnut pass 'em."

     I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on, so I bade
him take the road lower down. He probably raised the phantoms from
thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard
his parents and companions repeat. Yet, still I don't like being out in
the dark now, and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house.
I cannot help it. I shall be glad when they leave it and shift to the
Grange.

     "They are going to the Grange, then?" I said.

     "Yes," answered Mrs. Dean, "as soon as they are married, and that
will be on New Year's day."

     "And who will live here then?"

     "Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and perhaps a lad to keep
him company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut
up."

     "For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it," I observed.

     "No, Mr. Lockwood," said Nelly, shaking her head.

     "I believe the dead are at peace, but it is not right to speak of
them with levity."

     At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were
returning.

     "They are afraid of nothing," I grumbled, watching their approach
through the window. "Together they would brave Satan and all his
legions."

     As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last
look at the moon - or, more correctly, at each other by her light  - I
felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and pressing a
remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her
expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they
opened the house-door, and so should have confirmed Joseph in his
opinion of his fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not
fortunately recognized me for a respectable character by the sweet ring
of a sovereign at his feet.

     My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the
kirk. When beneath its walls I perceived decay had made progress, even
in seven months. Many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass, and
slates jutted off here and there beyond the right line of the roof, to
be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.

     I sought and soon discovered the three headstones on the slope next
the moor - the middle one gray, and half buried in heath; Edgar Linton's
only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's
still bare.

     I lingered round them under that benign sky, watched the moths
fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine
unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.







                        End