Wuthering Heights

black and blue.”
    ‘I had to point out the
black was there in the first place. But, Mr Lockwood, I’m annoyed how I should
dream of chattering on at such a rate (one pound an hour) and your gruel cold,
and you nodding for bed, 2 and you weak as a kitten. The clock is on the stroke
of eleven, sir.’
    ‘Nevertheless, Mrs Dean,
resume your chair; because tomorrow I intend lengthening the night till
afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold at least.’
    What a crashing bore this
man is, thought Mrs Dean. ‘Very well, Mr Lockwood, will you allow me to leap
over some three years?’
    ‘No, no,’ said the crashing
bore. ‘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 is licking its kitten — ’
Please, God, stop him, prayed Mrs Dean.
    ‘...on the rug before you,
you would watch an operation so intently that puss’s neglect of one ear would
put you seriously out of temper.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Lockwood, I
don’t understand a word you’re saying. Can I continue?’
    Lockwood nodded, then
winced with a pain in his neck which he was.
    ‘It was the summer of
1778….’ Continued Mrs Dean.

Chapter
VIII
    ------------
     
     
     
    N A FINE June day, the last Earnshaw was born.
Alas! the mother was with consumption and, sure enough, she snuffed it, and Mr
Earnshaw raced to Liverpool to cash in the policy. The child called Hareton
fell wholly into my hands, which he often filled. With the policy money Mr
Earnshaw turned to drink: he started with lemonade, but that soon lost its hold
over him, and he turned to that fiend from hell, whisky. Insane on alcohol he
would run on to the road and expose himself to passing carriages, but it still
couldn’t match Heathcliff’s. The master’s bad ways set a pretty bad example for
Cathy and Heathcliff; his treatment of the latter was terrible. He made the
latter work all hours, he denied the latter proper meals, he also stopped the
latter’s pay. It made the former very sad, people would say, “What’s the matter
former?” But Cathy still had great attraction for the latter. I could not tell
what an infernal home we had. Every night Hindley would stagger in drunk with
his flies open and sick down the front; he became famous in the district for
his flashing. The curate stopped calling. The gas man came and read the meter
and asked who the author was.
    ‘Occasionally Edgar Linton
called to see Miss Cathy. At fifteen she was queen of the countryside, she had
no peer, a terrible anatomical shortcoming. One afternoon Hindley went out on a
flashing expedition, so Heathcliff, on the strength of it, gave himself a
holiday. Cathy and he were constant companions, he had ceased to express his
fondness for her in words, instead he would do a series of somersaults ending
up with a cry of “Hola” but he recoiled from her girlish caresses. As they
caused great heat in the trousers and the smell of burning hairs, he took a jug
of water and poured it down his trousers. When the steam had abated, Heathcliff
announced he would not work that day. “But”, said Cathy, “Joseph will tell
Hindley.”
    ‘ “Joseph is shovelling
shit at the manure tip, he’ll never know,” so saying Heathcliff squatted down
by the fire and started to make chapattis and chant a raga.
    ‘ “Hindley doesn’t like
wily oriental music,” said Cathy.
    ‘ “It’s a big hit in
Calcutta,” said Heathcliff.
    ‘ “I must tell you”, said
Cathy, “that Isabella and Edgar Linton…” At the mention of them Heathcliff
winced and let fall his chapatti. “...They talked of calling this afternoon.”
    ‘ “I, too,” said
Heathcliff, “talked of calling this afternoon — I was going to call it
Tuesday.” It was a joke. It died there in that room with Cathy as a mourner. He
was going to top it with, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”, but there came
the sound of horses’ hooves and dung. Young Linton entered grinning and
waggling his eyebrows. A well-meaning nerd. Heathcliff rolled up his chappatis
and with a lewd gesture left.
    ‘Miss Cathy was furious,
she stamped her tiny foot on the floor, dislocating her toe. In pain she hopped
round
    the room holding her foot.
Eventually she came to rest where Master Linton passed the time of day with
her.
    ‘ “Two-thirty and five
seconds,” he said.
    ‘I was polishing the EPNS
when Cathy said; “Nelly, leave the room!” I told her I couldn’t because