Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind
to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and
mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however N.B. I
dine between twelve and one o’clock; the housekeeper, a matronly
lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would
not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five, on
mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the
room, I saw a servant girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and
coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the
flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back
immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles’ walk, arrived
at Heathcliff’s garden gate just in time to escape the first
feathery flakes of a snow shower.
On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with a black frost, and
the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove
the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway
bordered with straggling gooseberry bushes, knocked vainly for
admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
‘Wretched inmates!’ I ejaculated mentally, ‘you deserve perpetual
isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At
least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day time. I don’t
care--I will get in!’ So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it
vehemently. Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round
window of the barn.
‘Whet are ye for?’ he shouted. ‘T’ maister’s dahn i’ t’ fowld. Go
rahnd by th’ end ut’ laith, if yah went tuh spake tull him.’
‘Is there nobody inside to open the door?’ I hallooed,
responsively.
‘They’s nobbut t’ missis; and shoo’ll nut oppen’t an ye mak yer
flaysome dins till neeght.’
‘Why? Cannot you tell her who I am, eh, Joseph?’
‘Nor-ne me! Aw’ll hae noa hend wi’t,’ muttered the head,
vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay
another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a
pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him,
and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area
containing a coal shed, pump, and pigeon cot, we at length arrived
in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment, where I was formerly
received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense
fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid
for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the
‘missis’, an individual whose existence I had never previously
suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a
seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained
motionless and mute.
‘Rough weather!’ I remarked. ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Heathcliff, the
door must bear the consequence of your servants’ leisure
attendance: I had hard work to make them hear me.’
She never opened her mouth. I stared--she stared also: at any
rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner,
exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
‘Sit down,’ said the young man gruffly. ‘He’ll be in soon.’
I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned,
at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in
token of owning my acquaintance.
‘A beautiful animal!’ I commenced again. ‘Do you intend parting
with the little ones, madam?’
‘They are not mine,’ said the amiable hostess, more repellingly
than Heathcliff himself could have replied.
‘Ah, your favourites are among these?’ I continued, turning to an
obscure cushion full of something like cats.
‘A strange choice of favourites!’ she observed scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and
drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of
the evening.
……
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