第41章

Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm.

I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people talked regarding his ways; and then I've recollected his confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re-entering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word.

One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to Gimmerton.It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry.Icame to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your left hand; a rough sand pillar, with the letters W.H.cut on its north side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T.G.It serves as guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village.The sun shone yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all at once, a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart.Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before.I gazed long at the weather-worn block, and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth with a piece of slate.

`Poor Hindley!' I exclaimed involuntarily.I started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a twinkling; but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the Heights.Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse: supposing he should be dead! I thought--or should die soon!--supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb.The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate.

That was my first idea on observing an elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars.Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, my Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since.

`God bless thee, darling!' I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears.`Hareton, it's Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse.'

He retreated out of arm's length, and picked up a large flint.

`I am come to see thy father, Hareton,' I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognized as one with me.

He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity.

You may be certain this grieved more than angered me.Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him.He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him.I showed another, keeping it out of his reach.

`Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?' I inquired.`The curate?'

`Damn the curate, and thee! Gie me that,' he replied.

`Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it,' said I.`Who's your master?'

`Devil daddy,' was his answer.

`And what do you learn from daddy?' I continued.

He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher.`What does he teach you?' I asked.

`Naught,' said he, `but to keep out of his gait.Daddy cannot bide me, because I swear at him.'

`Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?' I observed.

`Ah--nay,' he drawled.

`Who then?'

`Heathcliff.'

I asked if he liked Mr Heathcliff.

`Ay!' he answered again.

Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the sentences--`I known't: he pays dad back what he gies to me--he curses daddy for cursing me.He says I mun do as I will.'

`And the curate does not teach you to read and write then?' Ipursued.

`No, I was told the curate should have his--teeth dashed down his throat,--if he stepped over the threshold--Heathcliff had promised that!'

I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate.He went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley, Heathcliff appeared on the doorstones; and I turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin.This is not much connected with Miss Isabella's affair: except that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange: even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs Linton's pleasure.

The next time Heathcliff came, my young lady chanced to be feeding some pigeons in the court.She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort.Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew.Now, as soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the house front.I was standing by the kitchen window, but I drew out of sight.He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something: she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm.She averted her face: he apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer.There was another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her.

`Judas! traitor!' I ejaculated.`You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver.'