Wuthering Heights | Page 5

leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the
table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen
four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens
to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of
assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could
with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from
some of the household in re-establishing peace.
Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious
phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though
the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily,
an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with
tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the
midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her
tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she

only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master
entered on the scene.
'What the devil is the matter?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I
could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.
'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered. 'The herd of possessed swine could
have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You
might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!'
'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,' he remarked,
putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. 'The
dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine?'
'No, thank you.'
'Not bitten, are you?'
'If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.' Heathcliff's
countenance relaxed into a grin.
'Come, come,' he said, 'you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a
little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my
dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your
health, sir?'
I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be
foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I
felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his
humour took that turn. He - probably swayed by prudential
consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant - relaxed a little in
the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and
introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me, - a
discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of
retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and
before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another
visit to-morrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I
shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself

compared with him.
CHAPTER II

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.
'What are ye for?' he shouted. 'T' maister's down i' t' fowld. Go round
by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.'
'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I hallooed, responsively.
'There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer

flaysome dins till neeght.'
'Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?'