I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me,and added in the strangest tone—“Be so good as to turn your lock,and draw your bolt—don’t omit it!”
“Well!” I said. “But why, Mr. Earnshaw?” I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.
“Look here!” he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol,having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel.“That’s a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not?I cannot resist going up with this every night,and trying his door.If once I find it open he’s done for;I do it invariably,even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!”
I surveyed the weapon inquisitively.A hideous notion struck me:how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument!I took it from his hand, and touched the blade.He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second:it was not horror, it was covetousness.He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife,and returned it to its concealment.
“I don’t care if you tell him,” said he.“Put him on his guard, and watch for him.You know the terms we are on, I see:his danger does not shock you.”
“What has Heathcliff done to you?” I asked. “In what has he wronged you,to warrant this appalling hatred?Wouldn’t it be wiser to bid him quit the house?”
“No!” thundered Earnshaw; “should he offer to leave me,he’s a dead man: persuade him to attempt it,and you are a murderess!Am I to lose _all_, without a chance of retrieval?Is Hareton to be a beggar?Oh, damnation!I _will_ have it back; and I’ll have _his_ gold too;and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul!It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!”
You’ve acquainted me, Ellen,with your old master’s habits.He is clearly on the verge of madness:he was so last night at least.I shuddered to be near him,and thought on the servant’s ill-bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable.He now recommenced his moody walk,and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen.Joseph was bending over the fire,peering into a large pan that swung above it;and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by.The contents of the pan began to boil,and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl;I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper,and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so,crying out sharply, “_I’ll_ make the porridge!” I removed the vessel out of his reach,and proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit. “Mr.Earnshaw,” I continued, “directs me to wait on myself:I will. I’m not going to act the lady among you,for fear I should starve.”
“Gooid Lord!” he muttered, sitting down,and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle.“If there’s to be fresh ortherings—just when I getten used to two maisters,if I mun hev’ a _mistress_ set o’er my heead,it’s like time to be flitting.I niver _did_ think to see t’ day that I mud lave th’ owld place—but I doubt it’s nigh at hand!”
This lamentation drew no notice from me:I went briskly to work,sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun;but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance.It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation.
“Thear!” he ejaculated. “Hareton,thou willn’t sup thy porridge to-neeght;they’ll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean!I’d fling in bowl un’ all, if I wer ye!There, pale t’ guilp off, un’ then ye’ll hae done wi’t.Bang, bang. It’s a mercy t’ bothom isn’t deaved out!”
It _was_ rather a rough mess, I own,when poured into the basins; four had been provided,and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy,which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that “the barn was every bit as good” as I, “and every bit as wollsome,” and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.
“I shall have my supper in another room,” I said.“Have you no place you call a parlour?”
“_Parlour_!” he echoed, sneeringly, “_parlour_!Nay, we’ve noa _parlours_.If yah dunnut loike wer company, there’s maister’s;un’ if yah dunnut loike maister, there’s us.”
“Then I shall go upstairs,” I answered;“show me a chamber.”
I put my basin on a tray,and went myself to fetch some more milk.With great grumblings, the fellow rose,and preceded me in my ascent:we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door,now and then, to look into the apartments we passed.
“Here’s a rahm,” he said, at last,flinging back a cranky board on hinges.“It’s weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in.There’s a pack o’ corn i’ t’ corner, thear,meeterly clane; if ye’re feared o’ muckying yer grand silk cloes,spread yer hankerchir o’ t’ top on’t.”
The “rahm” was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain;various sacks of which articles were piled around,leaving a wide, bare space in the middle.
“Why, man,” I exclaimed, facing him angrily,“this is not a place to sleep in.I wish to see my bed-room.”
“_Bed-rume_!” he repeated, in a tone of mockery.“Yah’s see all t’ _bed-rumes_ thear is—yon’s mine.”
He pointed into the second garret,only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls,and having a large, low, curtainless bed,with an indigo-coloured quilt, at one end.
“What do I want with yours?” I retorted. “I suppose Mr.Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?”
“Oh!it’s Maister _Hathecliff’s_ ye’re wanting?” cried he, as if making a new discovery.“Couldn’t ye ha’ said soa, at onst?un’ then, I mud ha’ telled ye, baht all this wark,that that’s just one ye cannut see—he allas keeps it locked,un’ nob’dy iver mells on’t but hisseln.”
“You’ve a nice house, Joseph,” I could not refrain from observing,“and pleasant inmates;and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs!However, that is not to the present purpose—there are other rooms.For heaven’s sake be quick,and let me settle somewhere!”
He made no reply to this adjuration;only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps,and halting before an apartment which,from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture,I conjectured to be the best one.There was a carpet—a good one,but the pattern was obliterated by dust;a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces;a handsome oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,—“This here is t’ maister’s.” My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted. I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose.