Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.-I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)-on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow shower.
On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
"Wretched inmates!" I ejaculated, mentally, "you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I don't care-I will get in!" So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently. Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.
"What are ye for?" he shouted. "T' maister's down i' t' fowld. Go round by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him."
"Is there nobody inside to open the door?" I hallooed, responsively.
"There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome dins till neeght."
"Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?"
"Nor-ne me! I'll hae no hend wi't," muttered the head, vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the "missis," an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute.
"Rough weather!" I remarked. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard work to make them hear me."
She never opened her mouth. I stared-she stared also: at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
"Sit down," said the young man, gruffly. "He'll be in soon."
I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance.
"A beautiful animal!" I commenced again. "Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam?"
"They are not mine," said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied.
"Ah, your favourites are among these?" I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats.
"A strange choice of favourites!" she observed scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.
"You should not have come out," she said, rising and reaching from the chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.
Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold.
"I don't want your help," she snapped; "I can get them for myself."
"I beg your pardon!" I hastened to reply.
"Were you asked to tea?" she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.
"I shall be glad to have a cup," I answered.
"Were you asked?" she repeated.
"No," I said, half smiling. "You are the proper person to ask me."
She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state.
"You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!" I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful; "and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space."
"Half an hour?" he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; "I wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in. Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present."
"Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morning-could you spare me one?"
"No, I could not."
"Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity."
"Umph!"
"Are you going to mak' the tea?" demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.
"Is _he_ to have any?" she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.
"Get it ready, will you?" was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow. When the preparations were finished, he invited me with-"Now, sir, bring forward your chair." And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.
I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every-day countenance.
"It is strange," I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and receiving another-"it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart-"
"My amiable lady!" he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. "Where is she-my amiable lady?"
"Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean."
"Well, yes-oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone. Is that it?"
Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen.
Then it flashed upon me-"The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pity-I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice." The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.
"Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law," said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.
"Ah, certainly-I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy," I remarked, turning to my neighbour.
This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. But he seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse, muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.
"Unhappy in your conjectures, sir," observed my host; "we neither of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead. I said she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son."
"And this young man is-"
"Not my son, assuredly."
Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.
"My name is Hareton Earnshaw," growled the other; "and I'd counsel you to respect it!"
"I've shown no disrespect," was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself.
He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time.
The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.
"I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide," I could not help exclaiming. "The roads will be buried already; and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance."
"Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch. They'll be covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them," said Heathcliff.
"How must I do?" I continued, with rising irritation.
There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its place. The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out-"Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking-yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!"
I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer.
"You scandalous old hypocrite!" she replied. "Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name? I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph," she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; "I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!"
"Oh, wicked, wicked!" gasped the elder; "may the Lord deliver us from evil!"
"No, reprobate! you are a castaway-be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the limits I fix shall-I'll not say what he shall be done to-but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!"
The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating "wicked" as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress.
"Mrs. Heathcliff," I said earnestly, "you must excuse me for troubling you. I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!"
"Take the road you came," she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her. "It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give."
"Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?"
"How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall."
"_You_! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night," I cried. "I want you to tell me my way, not to _show_ it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide."
"Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?"
"Are there no boys at the farm?"
"No; those are all."
"Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay."
"That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it."
"I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills," cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance. "As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do."
"I can sleep on a chair in this room," I replied.
"No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!" said the unmannerly wretch.
With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend me.
"I'll go with him as far as the park," he said.
"You'll go with him to hell!" exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore. "And who is to look after the horses, eh?"
"A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the horses: somebody must go," murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.
"Not at your command!" retorted Hareton. "If you set store on him, you'd better be quiet."
"Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin," she answered, sharply.
"Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em!" muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering.
He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.
"Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern!" shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat. "Hey, Gnasher! Hey, dog! Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him!"
On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out-on their peril to keep me one minute longer-with several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.
The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don't know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar. She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.
"Well, Mr. Earnshaw," she cried, "I wonder what you'll have agait next? Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones? I see this house will never do for me-look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking! Wisht, wisht; you mun'n't go on so. Come in, and I'll cure that: there now, hold ye still."
With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.
I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.

Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. After dinner, however - (I dine between twelve and one o'clock, since the housekeeper cannot comprehend my request to be served at five) - I stepped into my study to see a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust. So I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower.
On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. I jumped over the gate, and, running up the flag-stoned path, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
'Wretched, unwelcoming inmates!' I thought; 'I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I will get in!'
I grasped the latch and shook it. Vinegar-faced Joseph put his head out from a round window of the barn.
'What do ye want?' he shouted. 'T' master's down in t' fold. Go round by t' barn, if ye want to speak to him.'
'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I cried.
'There's nobbut t' missis; and she'll not open it for ye.'
'Why? Can't you tell her who I am, Joseph?'
'No! I'll have no hand in it,' muttered the head, vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to try again; when a young man shouldering a pitchfork appeared in the yard. He called me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed and pump, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful room where I was formerly received.
It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire. Near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the 'missis,' a person whose existence I had not suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and said nothing.
'Rough weather!' I remarked. 'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, I had hard work to make your servants hear me.'
She never opened her mouth. I stared - she stared also, in a cool manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly. 'He'll be in soon.'
I obeyed; and called the villainous dog, Juno, who deigned, at this second meeting, to move the extreme tip of her tail in acknowledgment.
'A beautiful animal!' I said. 'Do you intend parting with the pups, madam?'
'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess repellingly.
'Ah, your favourites are these?' I continued, turning to a cushion full of something like cats.
'A strange choice of favourites!' she said scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I coughed, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.
'You should not have come out,' she said, rising to take a canister from the chimney-piece.
Now I had a clear view of her face and figure. She was slender, and scarcely past girlhood: with an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have seen; small features, very fair; golden ringlets hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes which would have been irresistible if their expression had been more agreeable. Fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only emotions they showed were scorn and a kind of desperation. The canister was almost out of her reach; I rose to aid her, and she turned on me.
'I don't want your help,' she snapped.
'I beg your pardon!'
'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoon poised over the pot.
'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.
'Were you asked?' she repeated.
'No,' I said, half smiling. 'You are the proper person to ask me.'
She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and sat down again petulantly; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man had slung on a shabby coat, and looked at me sidelong as if there were some mortal feud between us. I could not be sure whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rough, entirely unlike Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff's; his thick brown curls were uncombed, his cheeks unshaven, and his hands tanned like a common labourer's. Still his attitude was almost haughty, and he showed none of a servant's haste to attend on Mrs Heathcliff. I thought it best to ignore his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me.
'You see, sir, I have come, as I promised!' I exclaimed with pretended cheerfulness. 'I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can give me shelter for that time.'
'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I wonder you should choose a snow-storm to ramble about in. You risk being lost in the marshes. Even people familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and there is no chance of a change at present.'
'Perhaps one of your lads can guide me - could you spare one?'
'No, I could not.'
'Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own judgement.'
'Umph!'
'Are you going to make the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.
'Is he to have any?' she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.
'Get it ready, will you?' he answered, so savagely that I was startled. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.
'Now, sir, bring forward your chair,' he said. We all drew round the table and began our meal in silence.
I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn and scowling.
'It is strange,' I began, 'how custom can mould our tastes: many could not imagine any happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as this, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady presiding over your home and heart-"
'My amiable lady!' he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. 'Where is she?'
'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.'
'Oh, you mean that her spirit guards Wuthering Heights, even though she is dead. Is that it?'
Perceiving my blunder, I tried to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a difference in their ages to make it likely that they were man and wife. He was about forty: she did not look seventeen.
Then it flashed upon me - 'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better people existed! A sad pity-I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice.' The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as repulsive; I knew that I was tolerably attractive.
'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff, corroborating my guess. As he spoke, he gave her a most peculiar look of hatred.
'Ah, I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the good fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour.
This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist as if to strike me, before smothering the storm in a brutal curse.
'An unhappy guess, sir,' said my host; 'we neither of us own your good fairy; her mate is dead. I said she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.'
'And this young man is-'
'Not my son, assuredly.' Heathcliff smiled again.
'My name is Hareton Earnshaw,' growled the other; 'and I'd counsel you to respect it!'
'I've shown no disrespect,' I replied, laughing internally at his dignity.
He fixed his eye on me until I feared I might be tempted either to box his ears or to laugh aloud. I began to feel out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal atmosphere overcame the glowing comfort of the fire; and I resolved to be cautious about visiting a third time.
The meal eaten, without a word of conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.
'I don't think it's possible for me to get home now without a guide,' I exclaimed. 'The roads will be buried.'
'Hareton, drive those sheep into the barn porch. They'll be covered if left in the fold all night,' said Heathcliff.
'What must I do?' I continued, with irritation.
There was no reply; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning matches. Joseph, in cracked tones, grated out, 'I wonder how yah can stand there i' idleness, when all them's gone out! But yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking - yah'll never mend yer ill ways, but go right to t' devil, like yer mother afore ye!'
I imagined, for a moment, that this speech was addressed to me; and, enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal intending to kick him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, answered.
'You scandalous old hypocrite!' she replied. 'Don't provoke me, or I'll ask the devil to carry you away! Look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art. The red cow didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism isn't caused by bad luck either!'
'Oh, wicked, wicked!' gasped the old man; 'may the Lord deliver us from evil!'
'Be off, scoundrel, or I'll have you modelled in wax! and I shall - I'll not say what - but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!'
The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with horror, hurried out, praying, and crying 'wicked' as he went. I thought she must be prompted by a sort of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I tried to interest her in my distress.
'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said earnestly, 'with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home!'
'Take the road you came,' she answered, sitting in a chair, with a candle, and the book open before her. 'That's the best advice I can give.'
'Then, if you hear of me being found dead in a pit full of snow, you won't feel that it is your fault?'
'How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden.'
'I want you to tell me my way, not to show it,' I cried; 'or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.'
'Who? There is him, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?'
'Are there no boys at the farm?'
'No.'
'Then I am compelled to stay.'
'That you may settle with your host,' she said. 'I have nothing to do with it.'
'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,' cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the entrance. 'As to staying here, I don't keep rooms for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph.'
'I can sleep on a chair in this room,' I replied.
'No, no! I will not permit any one the run of the place while I am asleep!' said the unmannerly wretch.
With this insult, my patience was at an end. In disgust, I pushed past him into the yard, running into Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the gate.
At first the young man appeared about to befriend me. 'I'll go with him to the park,' he said.
'You'll go with him to hell!' exclaimed Heathcliff. 'And who is to look after the horses, eh?'
'A man's life matters more than one evening's neglect of the horses: somebody must go,' murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.
'Not at your command!' retorted Hareton. 'You'd better be quiet.'
'Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,' she answered sharply.
'Hearken, hearken, she's cursing 'em!' muttered Joseph. He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized. Calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, I rushed to the gate.
'Master, master, he's stealing t' lanthern!' shouted Joseph. 'Hey, Gnasher! Hey Wolf, hold him, hold him!'
Two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the lid on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on yawning than devouring me alive; but they would not let me up, and I was forced to lie till their masters freed me. Then, hatless and trembling with anger, I ordered the rascals to let me out - on their peril to keep me one minute longer - with incoherent threats.
My agitation brought on a copious nosebleed, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don't know how it would have ended, had not Zillah, the housekeeper, come out to see what was happening. She thought that they had been laying violent hands on me; and not daring to attack her master, she turned on the younger scoundrel.
'Well, Mr. Earnshaw,' she cried, 'Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones? Look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking! Hush; don't go on so. Come in, and I'll cure that: now hold still.'
With these words she splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, lapsing into his habitual moroseness.
I was sick and faint; and was thus compelled to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she ushered me to bed.


While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious.
Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.
I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.
The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small-_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.
In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw-Heathcliff-Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres-the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.
I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription-"Catherine Earnshaw, her book," and a date some quarter of a century back.
I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary-at least the appearance of one-covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,-rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
"An awful Sunday," commenced the paragraph beneath. "I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute-his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious-H. and I are going to rebel-we took our initiatory step this evening.
"All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire-doing anything but reading their Bibles, I'll answer for it-Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, 'What, done already?' On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.
"'You forget you have a master here,' says the tyrant. 'I'll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.' Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour-foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks:
"'T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o'ered, und t' sound o' t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! there's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em: sit ye down, and think o' yer sowls!'
"Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!
"'Maister Hindley!' shouted our chaplain. 'Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy's riven th' back off "Th' Helmet o' Salvation," un' Heathcliff's pawsed his fit into t' first part o' "T' Brooad Way to Destruction!" It's fair flaysome that ye let 'em go on this gait. Ech! th' owd man wad ha' laced 'em properly-but he's goan!'
"Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, 'owd Nick' would fetch us as sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman's cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion-and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified-we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here."
* * * * * *
I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.
"How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!" she wrote. "My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I can't give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place-"
* * * * * *
I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print. I saw a red ornamented title-"Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough." And while I was, half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don't remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.
I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim's staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text-"Seventy Times Seven;" and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the "First of the Seventy-First," and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.
We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached-good God! what a sermon; divided into _four hundred and ninety_ parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would _ever_ have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the "_First of the Seventy-First_." At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.
"Sir," I exclaimed, "sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart-Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!"
"_Thou art the Man!_" cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. "Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage-seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul-Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!"
With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.
This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. "I must stop it, nevertheless!" I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,
"Let me in-let me in!"
"Who are you?" I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
"Catherine Linton," it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of _Linton_? I had read _Earnshaw_ twenty times for Linton)-"I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!"
As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, "Let me in!" and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.
"How can I!" I said at length. "Let _me_ go, if you want me to let you in!"
The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.
I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!
"Begone!" I shouted. "I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years."
"It is twenty years," mourned the voice: "twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years!"
Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.
I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.
To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering, yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.
At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer,
"Is any one here?"
I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff's accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet.
With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.
Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.
"It is only your guest, sir," I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice further. "I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you."
"Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the-" commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. "And who showed you up into this room?" he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. "Who was it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment?"
"It was your servant Zillah," I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. "I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is-swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!"
"What do you mean?" asked Heathcliff, "and what are you doing? Lie down and finish out the night, since you _are_ here; but, for Heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!"
"If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me!" I returned. "I'm not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the mother's side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called-she must have been a changeling-wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt!"
Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add-"The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in-" Here I stopped afresh-I was about to say "perusing those old volumes," then it would have revealed my knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I went on-"in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or-"
"What _can_ you mean by talking in this way to _me!_" thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. "How-how _dare_ you, under my roof?-God! he's mad to speak so!" And he struck his forehead with rage.
I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of "Catherine Linton" before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: "Not three o'clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six. Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!"
"Always at nine in winter, and rise at four," said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm's shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes. "Mr. Lockwood," he added, "you may go into my room: you'll only be in the way, coming downstairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me."
"And for me, too," I replied. "I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I'll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion. I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."
"Delightful company!" muttered Heathcliff. "Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house-Juno mounts sentinel there, and-nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! I'll come in two minutes!"
I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. "Come in! come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy, do come. Oh, do-_once_ more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me _this_ time, Catherine, at last!" The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.
There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though _why_ was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.
Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other. We were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose. He cast a sinister look at the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced the operation of stuffing a three-inch pipe with tobacco. My presence in his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for remark: he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and puffed away. I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came.
A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a "good-morning," but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison _sotto voce_, in a series of curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts. He glanced over the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat. I guessed, by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch, made a movement to follow him. He noticed this, and thrust at an inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.
It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze. She held her hand interposed between the furnace-heat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face. I was surprised to see Heathcliff there also. He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan.
"And you, you worthless-" he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash-. "There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread-you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight-do you hear, damnable jade?"
"I'll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse," answered the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. "But I'll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!"
Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be entertained by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted dispute. Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay. That was not long. I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable ice.
My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor. It was well he did, for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday's walk left pictured in my mind. I had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.
We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there. Our adieux were limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own resources; for the porter's lodge is untenanted as yet. The distance from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate. At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.
My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged upstairs; whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.

While leading the way upstairs, she asked me to hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody stay there. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had many queer goings on.
I fastened my bedroom door and glanced around. The furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out resembling coach windows. Approaching this, I looked inside, and found it to be a strange sort of old-fashioned couch, designed to make a little, private closet. It enclosed a window-ledge, which served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against Heathcliff and everyone else.
I placed my candle on the window-ledge. It had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of lettering, large and small: Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.
Listlessly I leant my head against the window, and read Catherine Earnshaw - Heathcliff - Linton, till my eyes closed; but then a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres - the air swarmed with Catherines. I discovered my candle-wick was lying on one of the old books, and perfuming the place with an odour of burnt leather. I snuffed out the candle and, still feeling cold and sick, sat up and spread open the book on my knee. It was a Testament, smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription: 'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a century back.
I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all Catherine's library. The books had been well used, though not for their proper purpose: she had scribbled over every morsel of blank paper in them. There was a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of one page I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of Joseph, rudely, yet powerfully sketched. I felt an immediate interest in the unknown Catherine, and began to decipher her faded writing.
'An awful Sunday,' it began. 'I wish my father were back again. Hindley is detestable. His conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious - H. and I are going to rebel. We took our first step this evening.
'All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph had a prayer-meeting in the garret. While Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire - doing anything but reading their Bibles - Heathcliff, myself, and the ploughboy had to take our prayer-books, and sit groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short sermon. A vain idea! The service lasted three hours; and yet my brother had the cheek to exclaim, when he saw us descending, "What, done already?" He will no longer let us play on Sunday evenings; now the smallest laugh gets us sent into the corner.
'"You forget you have a master here," says the tyrant. "Silence! Boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and sat on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour - foolish chatter that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as we could under the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, tears it down, boxes my ears, and croaks:
'"T' master only just buried, and Sabbath not over, and t' sound o' t' gospel still in yer ears, and ye dare be larking! Shame on ye! Sit down, and think o' yer souls!"
'He made us sit and read sermon-books. I hurled my dingy volume into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!
'"Master Hindley!" shouted Joseph. "Miss Cathy's torn th' back off 'Th' Helmet o' Salvation,' and Heathcliff's ripped 'T' Broad Way to Destruction!' It's fearsome that ye let 'em go on this way!"
'Hindley hurried up, and hurled us both into the back-kitchen. I took this book and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door open to give me light, and I have been writing for twenty minutes; but Heathcliff is impatient, and proposes that we should take the dairywoman's cloak, and have a scamper on the moors under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion - we cannot be damper, or colder, out in the rain than we are here.'
I suppose Catherine fulfilled her plan, for the next sentence was tearful.
'How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!' she wrote. 'My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more. He says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house. He has been blaming our father for treating Heathcliff too kindly; and swears he will reduce him to his right place-'
I began to nod drowsily over the dim page. My eye wandered to the print, and I saw a red ornamented title: 'Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham.' While I was wondering what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I fell asleep.
Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could have made me pass such a terrible night? I don't remember another as dreadful.
I began to dream. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow was deep; and, as we floundered on, my companion reproached me because I had not brought a pilgrim's staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing his own heavy cudgel.
Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going home: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach on seventy times seven sins; and either Joseph or I had committed the 'First of the Seventy-First,' and were to be publicly exposed.
We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks a few times; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: a deserted and half-ruined building. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full congregation; and he preached - good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each discussing a separate sin.
Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned! How I pinched myself, and rubbed my eyes, until finally, he reached the 'First of the Seventy-First.' Sudden inspiration came to me; I rose to denounce Jabez Branderham.
'Sir,' I exclaimed, 'I have endured the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him!'
'Thou art the Man!' cried Jabez. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gape and yawn. Brethren, execute judgment upon him!'
With that, the whole meeting, lifting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me; and I, having no weapon, began to grapple with Joseph for his. Soon the whole chapel resounded with blows: every man attacked his neighbour; and Branderham tapped so loudly on the pulpit that, to my unspeakable relief, the sounds woke me.
And what had suggested the tremendous tumult? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my window as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.
This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow. I heard, also, the fir bough tapping: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it. I thought I rose and tried to unfasten the casement; but the hook was stuck.
'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!'
'Who are you?' I asked, struggling to free myself.
'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton). 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding I could not shake the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes. Still it wailed, 'Let me in!' and kept its tenacious grip, maddening me with fear.
'How can I?' I said at last. 'Let me go, if you want me to let you in!'
The fingers relaxed. I snatched my hand through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to shut out the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!
'Begone!' I shouted. 'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.'
'It is twenty years,' mourned the voice: 'I've been a waif for twenty years!' There began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and I yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.
Hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead. The intruder appeared to hesitate. At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, 'Is anyone here?'
I thought it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff's voice, so I turned and opened the panels.
Heathcliff stood near the door, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak panel startled him like an electric shock: the candle leaped from his hold, and his agitation was so extreme that he could hardly pick it up.
'It is only your guest, sir,' I called out, to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice further. 'I screamed in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you.'
'Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood!' My host set the candle on a chair, finding it impossible to hold it steady. 'And who showed you into this room?' he continued, grinding his teeth. 'Who was it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house!'
'It was Zillah,' I replied, standing and rapidly pulling on my clothes. 'I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted. Well, it is - swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have good reason to shut it up, I assure you!'
'What do you mean?' asked Heathcliff, 'and why are you getting dressed? Lie down and sleep, since you are here; but, for heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise. Nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!'
'If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me!' I returned. 'That minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called - she must have been a changeling. Wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her sins, no doubt!'
Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected seeing Heathcliff's name with Catherine's in the book. I blushed, and hastened to add, 'The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in-'
Here I stopped again: I was about to say 'reading those old books,' but that would have revealed my knowledge of their contents. So I went on-'in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge, an occupation to set me asleep, like counting, or-'
'What can you mean by talking in this way to me!' thundered Heathcliff savagely. 'How dare you? God! he's mad to speak so!' And he struck his forehead with rage.
He seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity on him. I told him my dreams; affirming I had never heard the name of 'Catherine Linton' before, but reading it had produced an impression which had affected my sleep.
Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular breathing, that he struggled to vanquish violent emotion. Not liking to show that I had heard him, I continued to dress rather noisily, looked at my watch, and commented: 'Not three o'clock yet! I could have sworn it was six. We must surely have retired to rest at eight!'
'At nine in winter, and rise at four,' said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, dashing a tear from his eyes. 'Mr. Lockwood,' he added, 'you may go into my room: you'll only be in the way, coming down-stairs so early: and your outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.'
'For me, too,' I replied. 'I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I'll be off; and you need not dread my return.'
'Take the candle, and go where you please,' he said. 'I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and Juno guards the house. You can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! I'll come in two minutes!'
I obeyed, quitting the chamber; then, not knowing which way to go, I stood still, and saw a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the window, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.
'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do - once more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!' The spectre gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, blowing out the light.
There was such anguish in his grief and raving, that I was moved to compassion; half angry to have listened, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that baffling agony. I went cautiously downstairs, and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire enabled me to relight my candle. Nothing was stirring except a grey cat, which crept from the ashes with a querulous mew.
Two benches nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and the cat mounted the other. We were both of us nodding, when Joseph came shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trapdoor: the way to his garret, I suppose. He cast a sinister look at the fire, swept the cat from its bed, and sitting down in its place, began to stuff a pipe with tobacco. My presence was evidently a piece of impudence too shameful for remark: he smoked silently, arms folded; then heaved a deep sigh and left as solemnly as he came.
A stronger footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a 'good-morning,' but closed it again: for Hareton Earnshaw was cursing every object he touched, while he rummaged for a spade to dig through the snowdrifts. He glanced at me without any greeting.
Leaving my hard couch, I moved to follow him. He thrust at an inner door with the end of his spade, meaning that there was the place where I must go.
It opened into the main room, where the females were already astir. Zillah was urging flames up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, was reading a book by the aid of the blaze. She held her hand between the furnace-heat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in it; stopping only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog that snoozled its nose into her face.
I was surprised to see Heathcliff there also. He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah.
'And you, you worthless ___' he broke out, turning to his daughter-in-law, and using a term generally represented by a dash ___. 'There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them earn their bread - you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight - do you hear, damnable jade?'
'I'll put my trash away,' answered the young lady, throwing her book on a chair. 'But I'll not do anything except what I please!'
Heathcliff lifted his hand, and she sprang away. Having no desire to be entertained by a fight, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to warm myself at the fire. Heathcliff placed his fists in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she played the part of a statue during the rest of my stay.
That was not long. I declined breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, escaped into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as ice.
Before I reached the end of the garden, my landlord called to me to stop, and offered to accompany me across the moor. It was well he did, for the whole hill was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls gave no sign of the rises and depressions in the ground. Many pits were filled level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, were blotted from the scene of my walk yesterday. I had noticed a line of upright stones along the road, daubed with whitewash to serve as guides in the dark or in the snow: but almost all traces of them had vanished. My companion had to warn me frequently to steer to right or left, when I imagined I was following the road.
We talked little, and he left me at the entrance of Thrushcross Park; then I pushed forward alone. The distance from the gate to the grange is two miles. I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow. The clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; so I had taken exactly an hour for every mile of the way from Wuthering Heights.
My housekeeper and servants rushed to welcome me, exclaiming that they thought that I had perished last night. I bid them be quiet, and numbly dragged upstairs. After putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro for thirty minutes to restore warmth to my limbs, I retired to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too weak to enjoy the cheerful fire and steaming coffee which the servant had prepared for me.