`But, Mrs Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.'
`Oh!' she replied, `I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and verse, were consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice.'
Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as Istood.He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming:
`Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!'
`I won't have them now,' she answered.`I shall connect them with you, and hate them.'
She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it from her.`And listen,' she continued provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion.
But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue.
The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin s sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflicter.He afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire.I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen.I fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated from them;and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies also.He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path.Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to rise himself had produced just the contrary result.
`Yes; that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!' cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration with indignant eyes.
`You'd better hold your tongue, now,' he answered fiercely.
And his agitation precluding further speech, he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass.But ere he had crossed the doorstones, Mr Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder, asked:
"What's to do now, my lad?'
`Naught, naught,' he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude.
Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.
`It will be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him.`But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more.How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him.'
He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in.There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance I had never remarked there before; and he looked sparer in person.His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.
`I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr Lockwood,' he said, in reply to my greeting; `from selfish motives partly: I don't think Icould readily supply your loss in this desolation.I've wondered more than once what brought you here.
`An idle whim, I fear, sir,' was my answer; `or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away.I shall set out for London, next week; and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it.1 believe I shall not live there any more.'
`Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, are you?' he said.`But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won't occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from anyone.'
`I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed, considerably irritated.`Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now,' and I drew my notebook from my pocket.
`No, no,' he replied coolly; `you'll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return: I'm not in such a hurry.Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome.Catherine, bring the things in: where are you?'
Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.
`You may get your dinner with Joseph,' muttered Heathcliff aside, `and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.'
She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation to transgress.Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.
With Mr Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bid adieu early.I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.
`How dreary life gets over in that house!' l reflected, while riding down the road.`What a realization of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!'
