All Chapters of Wuthering Heights: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared.  Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise.  She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his.On an afternoon i

At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about the house.  And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak.  We were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused.  She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour; then came frequent questions.‘Ellen, are not you tired?  Hadn’t you better lie down now?  You’ll be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.’‘No, no, dear, I’m not tired,’ I returned, continually.Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for her occupation.  It changed to yawning, and stretching, and—‘Ellen, I’m tired.’‘Give over then and talk,’ I answered.That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, a

Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin.  It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads.  On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,—‘Maister Linton wer just o’ this side th’ Heights: and he’d be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.’‘Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,’ I observed: ‘he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once.’‘Well, we’ll turn our horses’ heads round when we reach him,’ answered my companion; ‘our excursion shall lie towards home.’But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze.&n

On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approached—lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the room.  It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm.‘Eh, dear!  Mrs. Dean!’ she exclaimed.  ‘Well! there is a talk about you at Gimmerton.  I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you’d been found, and he’d lodged you here!  What! and you must have got on an island, sure?  And how long were you in the hole?  Did master save you, Mrs. Dean?  But you’re not so thin—you’ve not been so poorly, have you?’‘Your master is a true scoundrel!’ I replied.  ‘But he shall answer for it.  He needn’t have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!’‘What do you mean?’ asked Zillah.  ‘It’s not his tale: they tell that in the village—about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls t

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