Wuthering Heights

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,

What vain weathercocks we are!  I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable—I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.‘You have lived here a considerable time,’ I commenced; ‘did you not say sixteen years?’‘Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her; after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.’‘Indeed.’There ensued a pause.  She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her own affairs, and those could hardly interest me.  However, h

Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and—a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left—he brought a wife with him.  What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father.She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account.  Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners.  I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly—‘Are they gone yet?’  Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started,

On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born.  We were busy with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.‘Oh, such a grand bairn!’ she panted out.  ‘The finest lad that ever breathed!  But the doctor says missis must go: he says she’s been in a consumption these many months.  I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she’ll be dead before winter.  You must come home directly.  You’re to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night.  I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!’‘But is she very ill?’ I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet.‘I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,’ replied the girl, ‘and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man.  She’s out of her h

A charming introduction to a hermit’s life!  Four weeks’ torture, tossing, and sickness!  Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!  And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring!Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call.  About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse—the last of the season.  Scoundrel!  He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him.  But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches?  This is quite an easy interval.  I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting.  Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale?  I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone.  Yes: I remember her