Wuthering Heights

departure.
    »Now, get my horse,« she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stable-boys at the Grange. »And you may come with me. I want to see where the goblin hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the
fairishes,
as you call them – but, make haste! What's the matter? Get my horse, I say.«
    »I'll see thee damned, before I be
thy
servant!« growled the lad.
    »You'll see me
what?
« asked Catherine in surprise.
    »Damned – thou saucy witch!« he replied.
    »There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company,« I interposed. »Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin to dispute with him – Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone.«
    »But, Ellen,« cried she, staring, fixed in astonishment. »How dare he speak so to me? Mustn't he be made to do as I ask him? You wicked creature, I shall tell papa what you said – Now then!«
    Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprung into her eyes with indignation. »You bring the pony,« she exclaimed, turning to the woman, »and let my dog free this moment!«
    »Softly, Miss,« answered the addressed. »You'll lose nothing, by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your cousin; and I was never hired to serve you.«
    »
He
my cousin!« cried Cathy with a scornful laugh.
    »Yes, indeed,« responded her reprover.
    »Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things,« she pursued in great trouble. »Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London – my cousin is a gentleman's son – That my –« she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.
    »Hush, hush!« I whispered, »people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn't keep their company, if they be disagreeable, and bad.«
    »He's not, he's not my cousin, Ellen!« she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea.
    I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's return, would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion, concerning her rude-bred kindred.
    Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the kennel; and putting it into her hand, bid her wisht! for he meant naught.
    Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe, and horror, then burst forth anew.
    I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow; who was a well-made, athletic youth, good looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm, and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil that might yield luxuriant crops, under other and favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill; thanks to his fearless nature which offered no temptation to that course of oppression; it had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to ill-treatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration by a narrow minded partiality which prompted him to flatter, and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw, and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink, by what he termed, their ›offalld ways,‹ so at present, he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property.
    If the lad swore he wouldn't correct him;