No More Learning

The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the
library; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door.

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

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

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

'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want my
children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her services
for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after
Linton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me to
compel you. '

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

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

'I know he has a bad nature,' said Catherine: 'he's your son. But I'm
glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that
reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff _you_ have _nobody_ to love you; and,
however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of
thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You _are_
miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?
_Nobody_ loves you--_nobody_ will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't
be you! '

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

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

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

'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff! ' I exclaimed; 'were you not
ashamed to disturb the dead? '

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

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

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

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

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

'Good-bye, Ellen! ' whispered my dear little mistress.

As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice. 'Come and see me, Ellen; don't
forget. '

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

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




CHAPTER XXX


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'She was dumb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays:' the kirk, you know, has
no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean; and they call the Methodists' or
Baptists' place (I can't say which it is) at Gimmerton, a chapel. 'Joseph
had gone,' she continued, 'but I thought proper to bide at home. Young
folks are always the better for an elder's over-looking; and Hareton,
with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour. I let him
know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been
always used to see the Sabbath respected; so he had as good leave his
guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed. He coloured up at
the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes.
The train-oil
and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to
give her his company; and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be
presentable; so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I
offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion. He grew
sullen, and began to swear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do: he sat down in
the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another
half hour; finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me.

'"Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I'm stalled of doing naught;
and I do like--I could like to hear her! Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask
of yourseln. "

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

'She frowned; and looking up, answered--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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




CHAPTER XXXI


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,--

'Does Ellen like you? '

'Yes, very well,' I replied, hesitatingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Oh! ' she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has
no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with
his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and
verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have
them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected
my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of
deliberate malice. '

Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe
sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.
I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took
up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood.
He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared,
bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into
Catherine's lap, exclaiming,--'Take them! I never want to hear, or read,
or think of them again! '

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed, considerably
irritated. 'Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now,' and I drew my
note-book from my pocket.

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

Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER XXXII


1802. --This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in
the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within
fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside public-house was
holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green
oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,--'Yon's frough Gimmerton,
nah! They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest. '

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

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

A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely
noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own
roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange
matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading
the neighbourhood again.