CHAPTER 5
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-corner 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 any one
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) 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 daresay, 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 to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising 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 latter.
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 down-stairs 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 slapping 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 fire-side. 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 so
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 up-
stairs, 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 lain 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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