Wuthering Heights (1847)

Chapter XXI

‘That must be a good distance up,’ I answered; ‘they don’t breed on the edge of the moor.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she said.  ‘I’ve gone very near with papa.’

I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter.  She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure.  She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days.  It’s a pity she could not be content.

‘Well,’ said I, ‘where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy?  We should be at them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.’

‘Oh, a little further—only a little further, Ellen,’ was her answer, continually.  ‘Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.’

But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps.  I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow.  Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.

Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse.  The Heights were Heathcliff’s land, and he was reproving the poacher.

‘I’ve neither taken any nor found any,’ she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement.  ‘I didn’t mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs.’

Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who ‘papa’ was?

‘Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,’ she replied.  ‘I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn’t have spoken in that way.’

‘You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?’ he said, sarcastically.

‘And what are you?’ inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker.  ‘That man I’ve seen before.  Is he your son?’

She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.

‘Miss Cathy,’ I interrupted, ‘it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently.  We really must go back.’

‘No, that man is not my son,’ answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside.  ‘But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest.  Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house?  You’ll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome.’

I whispered Catherine that she mustn’t, on any account, accede to the proposal: it was entirely out of the question.

‘Why?’ she asked, aloud.  ‘I’m tired of running, and the ground is dewy: I can’t sit here.  Let us go, Ellen.  Besides, he says I have seen his son.  He’s mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags.  Don’t you?’