Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (reading comprehension books .TXT) 📗

of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone.

“And you are my uncle, then!” she cried, reaching up to salute him. “I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don’t you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?”

“I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,” he answered. “There⁠—damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton: they are thrown away on me.”

“Naughty Ellen!” exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses. “Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering. But I’ll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won’t you be glad to see us?”

“Of course,” replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. “But stay,” he continued, turning towards the young lady. “Now I think of it, I’d better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he’ll put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it.”

“Why did you quarrel?” asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.

“He thought me too poor to wed his sister,” answered Heathcliff, “and was grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he’ll never forgive it.”

“That’s wrong!” said the young lady: “some time I’ll tell him so. But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I’ll not come here, then; he shall come to the Grange.”

“It will be too far for me,” murmured her cousin: “to walk four miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every morning, but once or twice a week.”

The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.

“I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,” he muttered to me. “Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!⁠—Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I’d have loved the lad had he been someone else. But I think he’s safe from her love. I’ll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid thing! He’s absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.⁠—Linton!”

“Yes, father,” answered the boy.

“Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel’s nest? Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.”

“Wouldn’t you rather sit here?” asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again.

“I don’t know,” she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active.

He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered. The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair.

“Oh, I’ll ask you, uncle,” cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper’s assertion. “That is not my cousin, is he?”

“Yes,” he, replied, “your mother’s nephew. Don’t you like him!”

Catherine looked queer.

“Is he not a handsome lad?” he continued.

The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff’s ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming⁠—

“You’ll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a⁠—What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don’t use any bad words; and don’t stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can.”

He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger’s and an artist’s interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation.

“I’ve tied his tongue,” observed Heathcliff. “He’ll not venture a single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect me at his age⁠—nay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid: so ‘gaumless,’ as Joseph calls it?”

“Worse,” I replied, “because more sullen with it.”

“I’ve a pleasure in him,” he continued, reflecting aloud. “He has satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much. But he’s no fool; and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance. I’ve got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I’ve taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak. Don’t you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him?