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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 visiters; 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 aid 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’lantern!’ 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 cope-stone 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.
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 stupified 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