His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.
‘I’m glad to see you out of doors again, Mr Lockwood,’ he said in reply to my greeting, ‘from selfish motives partly: I don’t think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I’ve wondered, more than once, what brought you here.’
‘An idle whim, I fear, sir,’ was my answer, ‘or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away—I shall set out for London, next week, and I must give you warning, that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange, beyond the twelvemonths I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there any more.’
‘Oh, indeed! you’re tired of being banished from the world, are you?’ he said. ‘But, if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won’t occupy, your journey is useless—I never relent in exacting my due, from any one.’
‘I’m coming to plead off nothing about it!’ I exclaimed, considerably irritated. ‘Should you wish it, I’ll settle with you now,’ and I drew my notebook from my pocket.
‘No, no,’ he replied coolly, ‘you’ll leave sufficient behind, to cover your debts, if you fail to return…I’m not in such a hurry—sit down and take your dinner with us—a guest that is safe from repeating his visit, can generally be made welcome—Catherine! bring the things in—where are you?’
Catherine re-appeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.
‘You may get your dinner with Joseph,’ muttered Heathcliff aside, ‘and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.’
She obeyed his directions very punctually—perhaps she had no temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people, when she meets them.
With Mr Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerlessmeal, and bid adieu early—I would have departed by the back way to get a last glimpse of Catherine, and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.
‘How dreary life gets over in that house!’ I reflected, while riding down the road. ‘What a realization of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together, into the stirring atmosphere of the town!’
Chapter XVIII
1802—This September, I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend, in the North; and, on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The hostler, at a roadside public-house, was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked—
‘Yon’s frough Gimmerton, nah! They’re allas three wick after other folk wi’ ther harvest.’
‘Gimmerton?’ I repeated, my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. ‘Ah! I know! How far is it from this?’
‘Happen fourteen mile’ o’er th’ hills, and a rough road,’ he answered.
A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof, as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily, to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again.
Having rested a while, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours.
I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moor sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It wassweet, warm weather—too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below; had I seen it nearer August, I’m sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter, nothing more dreary, in summer, nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.
I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged by one thin, blue wreath curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear.
I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the horse-steps, smoking a meditative pipe.
‘Is Mrs Dean within?’ I demanded of the dame.
‘Mistress Dean? Nay!’ she answered, ‘shoo doesn’t bide here; shoo’s up at th’ Heights.’
‘Are you the housekeeper, then?’ I continued.
‘Eea, Aw keep th’ hahse,’ she replied.
‘Well, I’m Mr Lockwood, the master—Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay here all night.’
‘T’ maister!’ she cried in astonishment, ‘Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha’ send word! They’s nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t’ place—nowt there isn’t!’
She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition.
I bid her be composed—I would go out for a walk; and, meantime, she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bed-room to sleep in—No sweeping and dusting, only good fires and dry sheets were necessary.
She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearthbrush into the grates in mistake for the poker; and malappropriated several other articles of her craft; but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return.
