Wuthering Heights Read Free Page A

purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.
    »What the devil is the matter?« he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure after this inhospitable treatment.
    »What the devil, indeed!« I muttered. »The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!«
    »They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,« he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. »The dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine?«
    »No, thank you.«
    »Not bitten, are you?«
    »If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.«
    Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin.
    »Come, come,« he said, »you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir.«
    I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs: besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement, at my expense; since his humour took that turn.
    He – probably swayed by prudential considerations of the folly of offending a good tenant – relaxed, a little, in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns, and auxiliary verbs; and introduced, what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me, a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement.
    I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and, before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit, to-morrow.
    He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.
     
     
Chapter II
    Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights.
    On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B. I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not comprehend my request that I might be served at five.) On mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees, surrounded by brushes, and coal-scuttles; and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow shower.
    On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled, and the dogs howled.
    »Wretched inmates!« I ejaculated, mentally, »you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day time – I don't care – I will get in!«
    So resolved, I grasped the latch, and shook it vehemently. Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.
    »Whet are ye for?« he shouted. »T' maister's dahn i' t' fowld. Goa rahnd by th' end ut' laith, if yah went tuh spake tull him.«
    »Is there nobody inside to open the door?« I hallooed, responsively.
    »They's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll nut oppen't an ye mak yer flaysome dins till neeght.«
    »Why? cannot you tell her who I am, eh, Joseph?«
    »Nor-ne me! Aw'll hae noa hend wi't,« muttered the head vanishing.
    The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man, without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork,