took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my

landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to

caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking

wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth

watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl.

‘You'd better let the dog alone,’ growled Mr Heathcliff in unison, checking

fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. ‘She's not accustomed to be

spoiled - not kept for a pet.’ Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again,

‘Joseph!’

Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no

intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me vis- à-

vis the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared

with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements.

Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still - but, imagining

they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in

winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so

irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees.

I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us. This

proceeding aroused the whole hive. Half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of

various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt

my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the

larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained

peace.

Mr Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm. I

don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was

an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping.

Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more dispatch; a lusty dame,

with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the

midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue,

to such 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?’

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

loath to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his

humour took that turn. He - probably swayed by prudential consideration 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 tomorrow. He

evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It

is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.

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.

end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.’

‘Is there nobody inside to open the door?’ I hallooed, responsively.

‘There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome

dins till neeght.’

‘Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?’

‘Nor-ne me! I'll hae no 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, appeared in

the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a

wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-

cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was

formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire,

compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful

evening meal, I was pleased to observe the ‘missis,’ an individual whose

existence I had never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking

she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair,

and remained motionless and mute.

‘Rough weather!’ I remarked. ‘I'm afraid, Mrs Heathcliff, the door must bear

the consequence of your servants’ leisure attendance: I had hard work to

make them hear me.’

kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing

and disagreeable.

‘Sit down,’ said the young man, gruffly. ‘He'll be in soon.’

I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this

second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my

acquaintance.

‘A beautiful animal!’ I commenced again. ‘Do you intend parting with the

little ones, madam?’

‘They are not mine,’ said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than

Heathcliff himself could have replied.

‘Ah, your favourites are among these?’ I continued, turning to an obscure

cushion full of something like cats.

‘A strange choice of favourites!’ she observed scornfully.

Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew

closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.

‘You should not have come out,’ she said, rising and reaching from the

chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of

her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely
past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I

have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen

ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had

they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible:

fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced

hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be

detected there. The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion

to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted

to assist him in counting his gold.

‘I don't want your help,’ she snapped; ‘I can get them for myself.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ I hastened to reply.

‘Were you asked to tea?’ she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black

frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

‘I shall be glad to have a cup,’ I answered.

‘Were you asked?’ she repeated.

‘No,’ I said, half smiling. ‘You are the proper person to ask me.’

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her

forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's ready

to cry.

Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby

upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me
from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal

feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a servant or

not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority

observable in Mr and Mrs Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and

uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his

hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing

was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in

attending on the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his

condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct;

and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some

measure, from my uncomfortable state.

‘You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!’ I exclaimed, assuming the

cheerful; ‘and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can

afford me shelter during that space.’

‘Half an hour?’ he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; ‘I wonder

you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in. Do you

know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with

these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there

is no chance of a change at present.’

‘Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange

till morning - could you spare me one?

‘No, I could not.’

‘Umph!’

‘Are you going to mak’ the tea?’ demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his

ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.

‘Is he to have any?’ she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.

‘Get it ready, will you?’ was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started.

The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature. I no

longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow. When the preparations

were finished, he invited me with – ‘Now, sir, bring forward your chair.’ And

we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table: an austere silence

prevailing while we discussed our meal.

I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to

dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was

impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl

they wore was their every-day countenance.

‘It is strange,’ I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and

receiving another – ‘it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and

ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such

complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr Heathcliff; yet, I'll venture to

say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the

presiding genius over your home and heart – ’

face. ‘Where is she - my amiable lady?’

‘Mrs Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.’