| In the course of time, Mr Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and
healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to
the chimney comer he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him; and
suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was
especially to be remarked if anyone attempted to impose upon, or domineer
over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken
amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because
he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill turn. It was
a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret
the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich
nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in
a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn,
while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his
stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it.
At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living
answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit
of land himself), he advised that the young man should be sent to college;
and Mr Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said--`Hindley
was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.'
I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think
the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied
the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements:
as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking
frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people,
Miss Cathy and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I dare say, up yonder.
He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee
that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the
curses on his neighbours. By his knack of sermonizing and pious discoursing,
he contrived to make a great impression on Mr Earnshaw; and the more feeble
the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying
him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He
encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after night,
he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and
Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the
heaviest blame on the last.
Certainly, she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take
up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener
in a day: from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed,
we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits
were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing, laughing,
and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she
was--but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot
in the parish; and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once
she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not
keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her.
She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent
for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than
any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little
mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did
so to me, but I would not bear shopping and ordering; and so I let her
know.
Now, Mr Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he
had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part,
had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition, than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were
all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look,
and her ready words turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting
me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her pretended
insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his
kindness: how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his
only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible
all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. `Nay, Cathy,'
the old man would say, `I cannot love thee; thou'rt worse than thy brother.
Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and
I must rue that we ever reared thee!' That made her cry, at first: and
then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told
her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.
But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr Earnshaw's troubles
on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fireside. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney:
it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together--I,
a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading
his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then,
after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her
still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on
the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell
into a doze, stroking her bonny hair it pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and
saying--`Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned
her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, `Why cannot you always be
a good man, father?' But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed
his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very
low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast.
Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We
all kept as mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done longer,
only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must
rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him
by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move, so he took the
candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set
down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them
to `frame upstairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that evening--he
had summut to do'.
`I shall bid father good night first,' said Catherine, putting
her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered
her loss directly--she screamed out--`Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!'
And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.
I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked
what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven.
He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the
parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However,
I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me;
the other said he would come in the morning. leaving Joseph to explain
matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they
had never laid down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer,
and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each
other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world
ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk:
and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all
there safe together.
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