Wuthering Heights

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 was sweet, 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' hause,« 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 now't norther dry – nor mensful abaht t' place – nowt there is n'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 hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker; and mal-appropriated several other articles of her craft; but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return.
    Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An after-thought brought me back, when I had quitted the court.
    »All well at the Heights?« I inquired of the woman.
    »Eea, f'r owt Ee knaw!« she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders.
    I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange; but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so, I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front; one fading, and the other brightening, as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling.
    Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless, amber light along the west; but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass by that splendid moon.
    I had neither to climb the gate, nor to knock – it yielded to my hand.
    That is an improvement! I thought. And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wall flowers, wafted on the air, from amongst the homely fruit trees.
    Both doors and lattices were open; and, yet, as is usually the case in a coal district, a fine, red fire illumined the chimney; the comfort which the eye derives from it, renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large, that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence; and, accordingly, what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered; and looked and listened in consequence, being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity, and envy that grew as I lingered.
    »Con-
trary!
« said a voice, as sweet as a silver bell – »That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you, again – Recollect, or I'll pull your hair!«
    »Contrary, then,« answered another, in deep, but softened tones. »And now, kiss me, for minding so well.«
    »No, read it over