第23章

Catherine loved it too; but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark; I followed.They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full people.She made no stay at the stair's head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him.I stubbornly declined answering for a while; she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards.I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment; then, I clambered up the ladder to warn her.Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within.The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again.When she did come Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's to be removed from the sound of our `devil's psalmody', as it pleased him to call it.I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks;but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr Hindley that once.He went down; I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things; but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away.He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and remained wrapt in dumb meditation.On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely:

`I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back.I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last.I hope he will not die before I do!'

`For shame, Heathcliff!' said I.`It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.'

`No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned.

`I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.'

But, Mr Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you.I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliffs history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.

Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, arid proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding.`Sit still, Mrs Dean,' I cried, `do sit still, another half-hour! You've done just right to tell the story leisurely.

That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style.Iam interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less.'

`The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.'

`No matter--I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours.

One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.'

`You shouldn't lie till ten.There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time.A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.'

`Nevertheless, Mrs Dean, resume your chair; because to morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon.I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.'

`I hope not, sir.Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs Earnshaw---'

`No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?'

`A terribly lazy mood, I should say.'

`On the contrary, a tiresomely active one.It is mine, at present;and, therefore, continue minutely.I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that the spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on.They do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface change, and frivolous external things.I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing.

One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.'

`Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,' observed Mrs Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.

`Excuse me,' I responded; `you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion.Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class.I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think.You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.'

Mrs Dean laughed.

`I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,'

she said; `not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but Ihave undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr Lockwood.You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin and that of French;and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter.However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer--the summer of 1778, that is, nearly twenty-three years ago.'