Wuthering Heights

account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed; though still I was moved by a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us.
    Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information; he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village?
    She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father: and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards.
    That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor: she lives there still.
    Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way, till Miss Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was, also, the anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement.
    This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she had asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moors with me; and Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance, and were back within the hour.
    »So make haste, Ellen!« she cried. »I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor game are settled; I want to see whether they have made their nests yet.«
    »That must be a good distance up,« I answered; »they don't breed on the edge of the moor.«
    »No, it's not,« she said. »I've gone very near with papa.«
    I put on my bonnet, and sallied out; thinking nothing more of the matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content.
    »Well,« said I, »where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be at them – the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.«
    »Oh, a little further – only a little further, Ellen,« was her answer, continually. »Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side, I shall have raised the birds.«
    But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps.
    I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me, a long way; she either did not hear, or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.
    Cathy had been caught in the act of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse.
    The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he was reproving the poacher.
    »I've neither taken any nor found any,« she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. »I didn't mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs.«
    Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who ›papa‹ was.
    »Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,« she replied. »I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way.«
    »You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected then?« he said, sarcastically.
    »And what are you?« inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker. »That man I've seen before. Is he your son?«
    She pointed to Hareton, the other individual; who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.
    »Miss Cathy,« I