‘Ony books ut yah leave, Aw sall tak’ intuh th’ hahse,’ said Joseph, ‘un’ it ‘ull be mitch if yah find ‘em agean; soa, yah muh plase yourseln!’
Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing upstairs, lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton.
The intimacy, thus commenced, grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish; and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to esteem; and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived in the end to reach it.
You see, Mr Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs Heathcliff’s heart; but now, I’m glad you did not try—the crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two; I shall envy no one on their wedding-day—there won’t be a happier woman than myself in England!
Chapter XIX
On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his ordinary employments, and, therefore, remaining about the house, I speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as heretofore.
She got down stairs before me, and out into the garden, where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.
I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief half hour; the black currant trees were the apple of Joseph’s eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flower bed in the midst of them!
‘There! That will be all shewn to the master,’ I exclaimed, ‘the minute it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking such liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head of it: see if we don’t! Mr Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit, than to go and make that mess at her bidding!’
‘I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s,’ answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled, ‘but I’ll tell him I did it.’
We always ate our meals with Mr Heathcliff. I held the mistress’s post in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table. Catherine usually sat by me; but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton, andI presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship, than she had in her hostility.
‘Now, mind you don’t talk with and notice your cousin too much,’ were my whispered instructions as we entered the room; ‘It will certainly annoy Mr Heathcliff, and he’ll be mad at you both.’
‘I’m not going to,’ she answered.
The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in his plate of porridge.
He dared not speak to her, there; he dared hardly look; and yet she went on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh; and I frowned, and then, she glanced towards the master, whose mind was occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced, and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity. Afterwards she turned, and re-commenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh.
Mr Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly surveyed our faces. Catherine met it with her accustomed look of nervousness, and yet defiance, which he abhorred.
‘It is well you are out of my reach,’ he exclaimed. ‘What fiend possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes? Down with them! and don’t remind me of your existence again. I thought I had cured you of laughing!’
‘It was me,’ muttered Hareton.
‘What do you say?’ demanded the master.
Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession.
Mr Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast, and his interrupted musing.
We had nearly finished, and the two young people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further disturbance during that sitting; when Joseph appeared at the door, revealing by his quivering lip, and furious eyes, that the outrage committed on his precious shrubs was detected.
He must have seen Cathy and her cousin about the spot before heexamined it, for while his jaws worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech difficult to understand, he began:
‘Aw mun hev my wage, and Aw mun goa! Awhedaimed tuh dee, wheare Aw’d sarved fur sixty year; un’ Aw thowt Aw’d lug my books up intuh t’ garret, un’ all my bits uh stuff, un’ they sud hev t’ kitchen tuh theirseln; fur t’ sake uh quietness. It wur hard tuh gie up my awn hearthstun, bud Aw thowt Awcoulddo that! Bud, nah, shoo’s taan my garden frough me, un’ by th’ heart! Maister, Aw cannot stand it! Yah muh bend tuh th’ yoak, an ye will—Aw’mnoan used to’t and an ow’d man doesn’t sooin get used tuh new barthens—Aw’d rayther arn my bite, an’ my sup, wi’ a hammer in th’ road!’
‘Now, now, idiot!’ interrupted Heathcliff, ‘cut it short! What’s your grievance? I’ll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly—She may thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.’
‘It’s noan Nelly!’ answered Joseph. ‘Aw sudn’t shift fur Nelly—Nasty, ill nowt as shoo is, thank God!shoocannot stale t’sowl uh nob’dy! Shoo wer niver soa handsome, bud whet a body mud look at her baht winking. It’s yon flaysome, graceless quean, ut’s witched ahr lad, wi’ her bold een, un’ her forrard ways—till—Nay! It fair brusts my heart! He’s forgetten all E done for him, un’ made on him, un’ goan un’ riven up a whole row ut t’ grandest currant trees, i’ t’ garden!’ and here he lamented outright, unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and Earnshaw’s ingratitude and dangerous condition.
‘Is the fool drunk?’ asked Mr Heathcliff. ‘Hareton, is it you he’s finding fault with?’
‘I’ve pulled up two or three bushes,’ replied the young man, ‘but I’m going to set ‘em again.’
‘And why have you pulled them up?’ said the master.
Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
