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.