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 gripe,
almost maddening me with fear. ‘How can
I!’ I said at length. ‘Let me
go, if you want me to let you in!’ The fingers
relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly
piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped
my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I
seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour;
yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful
cry moaning on! ‘Begone!’ I shouted.
‘I’ll never let you in, not if you beg
for twenty years.’ ’It is twenty
years,’ mourned the voice: ’twenty
years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’
Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the
pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I
tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so
yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. To my confusion,
I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps
approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open,
with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through
the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering
yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead:
the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to
himself. At last, he said, in a half-whisper,
plainly not expecting an answer, ’Is any one
here?’ I considered it best to confess my presence;
for I knew Heathcliff’s accents, and feared
he might search further, if I kept quiet. With
this intention, I turned and opened the panels.
I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.
Heathcliff stood near the entrance,
in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping
over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall
behind him. The first creak of the oak startled
him like an electric shock: the light leaped
from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his
agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick
it up.
‘It is only your guest, sir,’
I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation
of exposing his cowardice further. ’I had
the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful
nightmare. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
‘Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood!
I wish you were at the ’ commenced
my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he
found it impossible to hold it steady. ‘And
who showed you up into this room?’ he continued,
crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his
teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. ’Who
was it? I’ve a good mind to turn them out
of the house this moment?’
‘It was your servant Zillah,’
I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly
resuming my garments. ’I should not care
if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it.
I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that
the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it
is swarming with ghosts and goblins!
You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you.
No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!’
‘What do you mean?’ asked
Heathcliff, ’and what are you doing? Lie
down and finish out the night, since you are
here; but, for heaven’s sake! don’t repeat
that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless
you were having your throat cut!’
’If the little fiend had got
in at the window, she probably would have strangled
me!’ I returned. ’I’m not going
to endure the persécutions 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
down-stairs 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 up-stairs;
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.