I began to nod drowsily over the dim page:my eye wandered from manuscript to print.I saw a red ornamented title—“Seventy Times Seven,and the First of the Seventy-First.A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham,in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.” And while I was,half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper!What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night?I don’t remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.
I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality.I thought it was morning;and I had set out on my way home,with Joseph for a guide.The snow lay yards deep in our road; and,as we floundered on,my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim’s staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text—“Seventy Times Seven;” and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the “First of the Seventy-First,” and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.
We came to the chapel.I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice;it lies in a hollow, between two hills:an elevated hollow, near a swamp,whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman’s stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God!what a sermon; divided into _four hundred and ninety_ parts,each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit,and each discussing a separate sin!Where he searched for them, I cannot tell.He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase,and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned,and nodded, and revived!How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes,and stood up, and sat down again,and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would _ever_ have done.I was condemned to hear all out: finally,he reached the “_First of the Seventy-First_.” At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me;I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.
“Sir,” I exclaimed, “sitting here within these four walls,at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him!Drag him down, and crush him to atoms,that the place which knows him may know him no more!”
“_Thou art the Man!_” cried Jabez, after a solemn pause,leaning over his cushion.“Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved!The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren,execute upon him the judgment written.Such honour have all His saints!”
With that concluding word, the whole assembly,exalting their pilgrim’s staves,rushed round me in a body; and I,having no weapon to raise in self-defence,commenced grappling with Joseph,my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his.In the confluence of the multitude,several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me,fell on other sconces.Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings:every man’s hand was against his neighbour;and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle,poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit,which responded so smartly that, at last,to my unspeakable relief, they woke me.And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult?What had played Jabez’s part in the row?Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by,and rattled its dry cones against the panes!I listened doubtingly an instant;detected the disturber, then turned and dozed,and dreamt again: if possible,still more disagreeably than before.
This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet,and I heard distinctly the gusty wind,and the driving of the snow; I heard, also,the fir bough repeat its teasing sound,and ascribed it to the right cause:but it annoyed me so much,that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and,I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement.The hook was soldered into the staple:a circumstance observed by me when awake,but forgotten. “I must stop it, nevertheless!” I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass,and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch;instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
The intense horror of nightmare came over me:I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it,and a most melancholy voice sobbed,
“Let me in—let me in!”
“Who are you?” I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
“Catherine Linton,” it replied,shiveringly (why did I think of _Linton_?I had read _Earnshaw_ twenty times for Linton)—“I’m come home:I’d lost my way on the moor!”
As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely,a child’s face looking through the window.Terror made me cruel; and,finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off,I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane,and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes:still it wailed, “Let me in!” and maintained its tenacious gripe,almost maddening me with fear.
“How can I!” I said at length. “Let _me_ go,if you want me to let you in!”
The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole,hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it,and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.
I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour;yet, the instant I listened again,there was the doleful cry moaning on!
“Begone!” I shouted. “I’ll never let you in,not if you beg for twenty years.”
“It is twenty years,” mourned the voice: “twenty years.I’ve been a waif for twenty years!”
Thereat began a feeble scratching outside,and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.
I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb;and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.
To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal:hasty footsteps approached my chamber door;somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand,and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed.I sat shuddering, yet,and wiping the perspiration from my forehead:the intruder appeared to hesitate,and muttered to himself.
At last, he said, in a half-whisper,plainly not expecting an answer,
“Is any one here?”
I considered it best to confess my presence;for I knew Heathcliff’s accents,and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet.
With this intention, I turned and opened the panels.I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.