Chapter V

In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active
and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was
confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing
vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into
fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose
upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a
word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head
the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to
do him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder
among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his
partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child’s
pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice,
or thrice, Hindley’s manifestation of scorn, while his father was near,
roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and
shook with rage that he could not do it.

At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by
teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land
himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr.
Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—“Hindley was
nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.”

I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the
master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the
discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as
he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his
sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for
two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay,
up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest
self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the
promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his
knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a
great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master
became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him
about his soul’s concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He
encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after
night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against
Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw’s weakness
by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.

Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up
before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener
in a day: from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to
bed, we had not a minute’s security that she wouldn’t be in mischief.
Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always
going—singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the
same. A wild, wicked slip she was—but she had the bonniest eye, the
sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I
believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good
earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and
oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her. She was much too
fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was
to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us
on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little
mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she
did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let
her know.

Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had
always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had
no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we
were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy
look, and her ready words; turning Joseph’s religious curses into
ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most—showing
how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over
Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do her bidding in
anything, and his only when it suited his own inclination. After
behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to
make it up at night. “Nay, Cathy,” the old man would say, “I cannot
love thee, thou’rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child,
and ask God’s pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever
reared thee!” That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed
continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was
sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw’s troubles on
earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were
all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting,
and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally
sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been
sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father’s knee, and
Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember
the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair—it
pleased him rarely to see her gentle—and saying, “Why canst thou not
always be a good lass, Cathy?” And she turned her face up to his, and
laughed, and answered, “Why cannot you always be a good man, father?”
But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said
she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his
fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told
her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as
mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only
Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse
the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by
name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the
candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set
down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them
to “frame upstairs, and make little din—they might pray alone that
evening—he had summut to do.”

“I shall bid father good-night first,” said Catherine, putting her arms
round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered
her loss directly—she screamed out—“Oh, he’s dead, Heathcliff! he’s
dead!” And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we
could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He
told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the
parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then.
However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor,
back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving
Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children’s room: their door was
ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but
they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls
were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit
on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they
did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could
not help wishing we were all there safe together.