Wuthering Heights
thing won’t be settled while you linger about it.”
“Well,” replied I, “I hope you’ll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff,
or you’ll not keep him long; and he’s all you have akin in the wide
world, that you will ever know—remember.”
“I’ll be _very_ kind to him, you needn’t fear,” he said, laughing.
“Only nobody else must be kind to him: I’m jealous of monopolising his
affection. And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some
breakfast. Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work. Yes, Nell,”
he added, when they had departed, “my son is prospective owner of your
place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his
successor. Besides, he’s _mine_, and I want the triumph of seeing _my_
descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children
to till their fathers’ lands for wages. That is the sole consideration
which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate
him for the memories he revives! But that consideration is sufficient:
he’s as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master
tends his own. I have a room upstairs, furnished for him in handsome
style; I’ve engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from
twenty miles’ distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn. I’ve
ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I’ve arranged everything with
a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his
associates. I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the
trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a
worthy object of pride; and I’m bitterly disappointed with the
whey-faced, whining wretch!”
While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of
milk-porridge, and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the
homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it.
I saw the old man-servant shared largely in his master’s scorn of the
child; though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart,
because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour.
“Cannot ate it?” repeated he, peering in Linton’s face, and subduing
his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. “But Maister
Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little ’un; and what wer
gooid eneugh for him’s gooid eneugh for ye, I’s rayther think!”
“I _sha’n’t_ eat it!” answered Linton, snappishly. “Take it away.”
Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.
“Is there aught ails th’ victuals?” he asked, thrusting the tray under
Heathcliff’s nose.
“What should ail them?” he said.
“Wah!” answered Joseph, “yon dainty chap says he cannut ate ’em. But I
guess it’s raight! His mother wer just soa—we wer a’most too mucky to
sow t’ corn for makking her breead.”
“Don’t mention his mother to me,” said the master, angrily. “Get him
something that he can eat, that’s all. What is his usual food, Nelly?”
I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received
instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father’s
selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate
constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I’ll console
Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff’s humour has
taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while
Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly
sheep-dog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed
the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words—
“Don’t leave me! I’ll not stay here! I’ll not stay here!”
Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come
forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief
guardianship ended.
CHAPTER XXI
We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee,
eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations
followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to
soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however,
“if I can get him”; and there were no hopes of that. This promise
poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though still at
intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before
she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that
she did not recognise him.
When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in
paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master
got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was
never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak
health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to
dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to
conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could
not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes
together. There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his
lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the
parlour: or else lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting
coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort.
“And I never knew such a faint-hearted creature,” added the woman; “nor
one so careful of hisseln. He _will_ go on, if I leave the window open
a bit late in the evening. Oh! it’s killing, a breath of night air! And
he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph’s bacca-pipe is
poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk,
milk for ever—heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter;
and there he’ll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the
fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and
if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him—Hareton is not bad-natured,
though he’s rough—they’re sure to part, one swearing and the other
crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw’s thrashing him to a
mummy, if he were not his son; and I’m certain he would be fit to turn
him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But
then he won’t go into danger of temptation: he never enters the
parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he
sends him upstairs directly.”
I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered
young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so
originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still
I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had
been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he
thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk
to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever
came into the village? She said he had only been twice, on horseback,
accompanying his father; and both times he pretended to be quite
knocked up for three or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if
I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did
not know, was her successor; she lives there still.
Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy
reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested
any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late
mistress’s death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the
library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he
would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine
was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March
was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young
lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a
ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave,
if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.
“So make haste, Ellen!” she cried. “I know where I wish to go; where a
colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made
their nests yet.”
“That must be a good distance up,” I answered; “they don’t breed on the
edge of the moor.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “I’ve gone very near with papa.”
I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the
matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off
again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of
entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and
enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my
delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright
cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes
radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an
angel, in those days. It’s a pity she could not be content.
“Well,” said I, “where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be at
them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.”
“Oh, a little further—only a little further, Ellen,” was her answer,
continually. “Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time
you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.”
But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at
length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our
steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she
either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I
was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I
came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights
than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of
whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.
Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting
out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff’s land, and he
was reproving the poacher.
“I’ve neither taken any nor found any,” she said, as I toiled to them,
expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. “I didn’t mean
to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I
wished to see the eggs.”
Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his
acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards
it, and demanded who “papa” was?
“Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,” she replied. “I thought you did not
know me, or you wouldn’t have spoken in that way.”
“You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?” he said,
sarcastically.
“And what are you?” inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the
speaker. “That man I’ve seen before. Is he your son?”
She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing
but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his
age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.
“Miss Cathy,” I interrupted, “it will be three hours instead of one
that we are out, presently. We really must go back.”
“No, that man is not my son,” answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside.
“But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your
nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a
little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my
house? You’ll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a
kind welcome.”
I whispered Catherine that she mustn’t, on any account, accede to the
proposal: it was entirely out of the question.
“Why?” she asked, aloud. “I’m tired of running, and the ground is dewy:
I can’t sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen his
son. He’s mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the
farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags. Don’t you?”
“I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongue—it will be a treat for her to look
in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall walk with me,
Nelly.”
“No, she’s not going to any such place,” I cried, struggling to release