Chapter III

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 grew. 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 persecutions 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 downstairs 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 upstairs;
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.