Chương Chương 3 · 第3章

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.