Wuthering Heights

gave a cheery
wave as her high-spirited pony lashed out, breaking Hareton’s left leg.
Accompanied by her two pointers facing due south, she departed for home leaving
me to return on my own.
    ‘Alas! on the way back both
the pointers died of dog flu’. There had been a spate of it on the moors. What
happened was that the dog would give a sudden cough, he on its back with its
legs in the air, give a low growl and snuff it.
    ‘When I got back to
Thrushcross Grange, I was exhausted. Catherine was in her nightdress, sitting
by the fire reading the Bible — how Zachariah went to heaven in a fiery chariot
with third-degree burns.’

Chapter
XVI
    ------------
     
     
     
    LETTER EDGED in black was waiting. It
announced the master’s forthcoming return. He wrote bidding me go into mourning
for his sister. Immediately I blacked out my teeth. I started practising crying
as soon as I could. I tried saying “Boo hoo hoo” a few times. Catherine ran
wild with joy at the idea of welcoming back her father. Mile after mile she ran
wild with joy across the moors like her mother. She ran up the hill and down
the dale. She ran gasping. When wild with joy she came to a halt. “Is he back
yet?” she gasped.
    ‘ “No,” I said, and off she
went, running wild with joy mile after mile. Her father had better arrive soon
or she’d never last out. After sixty miles, we made her stop.
    ‘The evening of the father’s
expected arrival came but the coach was late, it had malaria, so off Catherine
went on another joyous run. By then the father was drawing nigh. He drew nigh
seven times till he finally arrived back. Since early morning, she had been
busy with her own small affairs — the milkman, the baker and the butcher’s boy.
She was now attired in her new black deep mourning dress, she was so happy!
Poor thing, her aunt’s death impressed her with no definite sorrow. She herself
had said, “My aunt’s death has impressed me with no definite sorrow.”
    ‘I told her that, along
with her father, was coming her cousin Linton. “Oh, how lovely,” she said. “We
can show him where the dogs are buried.” Linton’s mother had sent Edgar a lock
of Linton’s hair; the boy was half bald for months. “Oh, I am happy,” said
Catherine. “Oh, papa, dear dear papa. Come, Nelly, let’s run, come run.” She
ran and returned and ran again many times before I reached the gate. “Ah,” she
exclaimed, “I see some dust on the road — they are coming.”
    ‘The dust arrived but there
was no one in it. Obviously they were not travelling by dust. Then a travelling
carriage with malaria rolled into sight; the horse gave me a big welcoming
smile. Miss Cathy shrieked, stood in the road, arms outstretched and the coach ran
over her. She was shaken but not stirred or hurt. Her father, pissed, fell out
the coach in a heap of dust on the floor. Cathy took him in her arms, “Oh,
daddy, daddy,” she sang.
    ‘ “Who are you?” he said,
taking a swig from a flask.
    ‘I explained to him who
Cathy was.
    ‘ “Good Lord, wonderful
news, I’ve had a daughter, without a wife, a male immaculate conception.”
    ‘Then her cousin Linton
emerged, wearing a wig. He was a boy of eleven or a girl of twelve. It turned
out to be the former.
    ‘ “Ah,” said Cathy, “you’ve
turned out to be the former boy of eleven. Come, let us run!”
    ‘I cautioned Cathy that her
cousin was not so strong and merry as she was. I told her that he was in fact a
miserable little bastard, and I added that he had lost his mother.
    ‘ “Then we must look for
her,” said Cathy.
    ‘ “This is your cousin,
Cathy, Linton,” I said, putting their little hands together, but he took his
little hand away, the little creep.
    ‘ “There, there, you’ll
soon get used to her and she’ll take you running wild with joy,” I said.
    ‘I took the boy into the
house. I thought the change would do him good, seeing this innocent boy awoke a
deep primitive instinct in me: it was manual strangulation.
    ‘All of us entered the
house and mounted to the library where we dismounted and had tea. We placed
Linton on a chair where he burst into tears. “I cannot sit on a chair,” he
bawled.
    ‘ “Then what do you sit
on?” said Master Edgar.
    ‘ “My mother’s knee,” he
wailed.
    ‘Alas! we didn’t have a mother’s
knee handy so we sat him on the sofa, which was soft like his mother’s knee.
    ‘ “Fancy,” said Master
Edgar. “His mother had a knee like a