Wuthering Heights

evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the court or garden, the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and said, she was tired of living, her life was useless.
    Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw out of his apartment. Owing to an accident, at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen. His gun burst, while out on the hills, by himself; a splinter cut his arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The consequence was, that, perforce, he was condemned to the fire-side and tranquillity, till he made it up again.
    It suited Catherine to have him there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up stairs, more than ever; and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might accompany me.
    On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen – Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate.
    At a notice that I could do with her no longer, intercepting my light, she removed to the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but, presently, I heard her begin –
    »I've found out, Hareton, that I want – that I'm glad – that I should like you to be my cousin, now, if you had not grown so cross to me, and so rough.«
    Hareton returned no answer.
    »Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?« she continued.
    »Get off wi' ye!« he growled, with uncompromising gruffness.
    »Let me take that pipe,« she said, cautiously advancing her hand, and abstracting it from his mouth.
    Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the fire. He swore at her and seized another.
    »Stop,« she cried, »you must listen to me, first; and I can't speak while those clouds are floating in my face.«
    »Will you go to the devil!« he exclaimed, ferociously, »and let me be!«
    »No,« she persisted, »I won't – I can't tell what to do to make you talk to me, and you are determined not to understand. When I call you stupid, I don't mean anything – I don't mean that I despise you. Come you shall take notice of me, Hareton – you are my cousin, and you shall own me.«
    »I shall have naught to do wi' you, and your mucky pride, and your damned, mocking tricks!« he answered. »I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you again! Side out of t' gait, now; this minute!«
    Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat, chewing her lip, and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob.
    »You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton,« I interrupted, »since she repents of her sauciness! it would do you a great deal of good – it would make you another man, to have her for a companion.«
    »A companion?« he cried; »when she hates me, and does not think me fit to wipe her shoon! Nay, if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for seeking her goodwill any more.«
    »It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me!« wept Cathy, no longer disguising her trouble. »You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and more.«
    »You are a damned liar,« began Earnshaw; »why have I made him angry, by taking your part then, a hundred times? and that, when you sneered at, and despised me, and – Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you worried me out of the kitchen!«
    »I didn't know you took my part,« she answered, drying her eyes; »and I was miserable and bitter at every body; but, now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me, what can I do besides?«
    She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand.
    He blackened, and scowled like a thunder cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground.
    Catherine, by instinct, must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant, undecided, she stooped, and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss.
    The little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former