prompt:
Chapter: Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold.  I had half a mind to spend it
by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering
Heights.  On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.--I dine between twelve
and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture
along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that
I might be served at five)--on mounting the stairs with this lazy
intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees
surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as
she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders.  This spectacle drove
me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk,
arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first
feathery flakes of a snow-shower.

On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air
made me shiver through every limb.  Being unable to remove the chain, I
jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with
straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my
knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.

'Wretched inmates!' I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual
isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I
would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I don't care--I will get
in!' So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently.
Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.

'What are ye for?' he shouted.  'T' maister's down i' t' fowld.  Go round
by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.'

'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I hallooed, responsively.

'There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer
flaysome dins till neeght.'

'Why?  Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?'

'Nor-ne me!  I'll hae no hend wi't,' muttered the head, vanishing.

The snow began to drive thickly.  I seized the handle to essay another
trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork,
appeared in the yard behind.  He hailed me to follow him, and, after
marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed,
pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful
apartment where I was formerly received.  It glowed delightfully in the
radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near
the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe
the 'missis,' an individual whose existence I had never previously
suspected.  I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat.
She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and
mute.

'Rough weather!' I remarked.  'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must
bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard
work to make them hear me.'

She never opened her mouth.  I stared--she stared also: at any rate, she
kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly
embarrassing and disagreeable.

'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly.  'He'll be in soon.'

I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this
second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning
my acquaintance.

'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again.  'Do you intend parting with the
little ones, madam?'

'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than
Heathcliff himself could have replied.

'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an obscure
cushion full of something like cats.

'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully.

Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits.  I hemmed once more, and drew
closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the
evening.

'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the
chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct
view of her whole figure and countenance.  She was slender, and
apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most
exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding;
small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging
loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in
expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my
susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn
and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there.  The
canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she
turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him
in counting his gold.

'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.'

'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply.

'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black
frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.

'Were you asked?' she repeated.

'No,' I said, half smiling.  'You are the proper person to ask me.'

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet;
her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's
ready to cry.

Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby
upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me
from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some
mortal feud unavenged between us.  I began to doubt whether he were a
servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of
the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown
curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over
his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer:
still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a
domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.  In the
absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain
from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the
entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my
uncomfortable state.

'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!' I exclaimed, assuming
the cheerful; 'and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if
you can afford me shelter during that space.'

'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I
wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in.  Do
you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes?  People
familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I
can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.'

'Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the
Grange till morning--could you spare me one?'

'No, I could not.'

'Oh, indeed!  Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.'

'Umph!'

'Are you going to mak' the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting
his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.

'Is _he_ to have any?' she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.

'Get it ready, will you?' was the answer, uttered so savagely that I
started.  The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad
nature.  I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.
When the preparations were finished, he invited me with--'Now, sir, bring
forward your chair.'  And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round
the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.

I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to
dispel it.  They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was
impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl
they wore was their every-day countenance.

'It is strange,' I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea
and receiving another--'it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and
ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of
such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet,
I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your
amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart--'

'My amiable lady!' he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his
face.  'Where is she--my amiable lady?'

'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.'

'Well, yes--oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of
ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even
when her body is gone.  Is that it?'

Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it.  I might have
seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to
make it likely that they were man and wife.  One was about forty: a
period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being
married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our
declining years.  The other did not look seventeen.

Then it flashed upon me--'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea
out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her
husband: Heathcliff junior, of course.  Here is the consequence of being
buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer
ignorance that better individuals existed!  A sad pity--I must beware how
I cause her to regret her choice.'  The last reflection may seem
conceited; it was not.  My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive;
I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.

'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff, corroborating
my surmise.  He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a
look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that
will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

'Ah, certainly--I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the
beneficent fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour.

This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his
fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault.  But he seemed to
recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse,
muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.

'Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,' observed my host; 'we neither of us
have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead.  I said
she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.'

'And this young man is--'

'Not my son, assuredly.'

Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to
attribute the paternity of that bear to him.

'My name is Hareton Earnshaw,' growled the other; 'and I'd counsel you to
respect it!'

'I've shown no disrespect,' was my reply, laughing internally at the
dignity with which he announced himself.

He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear
I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible.
I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle.
The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the
glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I
ventured under those rafters a third time.

The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of
sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather.  A
sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and
hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.

'I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,' I
could not help exclaiming.  'The roads will be buried already; and, if
they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.'

'Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch.  They'll be
covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them,' said
Heathcliff.

'How must I do?' I continued, with rising irritation.

There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph
bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning
over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which
had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its
place.  The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical
survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out--'Aw wonder how yah
can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan
out!  Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking--yah'll niver mend o'yer
ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!'

I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to
me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an
intention of kicking him out of the door.  Mrs. Heathcliff, however,
checked me by her answer.

'You scandalous old hypocrite!' she replied.  'Are you not afraid of
being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name?  I warn
you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special
favour!  Stop! look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark
book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black
Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it.  The red cow
didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among
providential visitations!'

'Oh, wicked, wicked!' gasped the elder; 'may the Lord deliver us from
evil!'

'No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or I'll hurt you seriously!
I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the
limits I fix shall--I'll not say what he shall be done to--but, you'll
see!  Go, I'm looking at you!'

The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and
Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and
ejaculating 'wicked' as he went.  I thought her conduct must be prompted
by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to
interest her in my distress.

'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said earnestly, 'you must excuse me for troubling
you.  I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being
good-hearted.  Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way
home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get
to London!'

'Take the road you came,' she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair,
with a candle, and the long book open before her.  'It is brief advice,
but as sound as I can give.'

'Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of
snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?'

'How so?  I cannot escort you.  They wouldn't let me go to the end of the
garden wall.'

'_You_!  I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my
convenience, on such a night,' I cried.  'I want you to tell me my way,
not to _show_ it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.'

'Who?  There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I.  Which would you
have?'

'Are there no boys at the farm?'

'No; those are all.'

'Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.'

'That you may settle with your host.  I have nothing to do with it.'

'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these
hills,' cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance.  'As to
staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a
bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.'

'I can sleep on a chair in this room,' I replied.

'No, no!  A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit
me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!' said
the unmannerly wretch.

With this insult my patience was at an end.  I uttered an expression of
disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in
my haste.  It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as
I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour
amongst each other.  At first the young man appeared about to befriend
me.

'I'll go with him as far as the park,' he said.

'You'll go with him to hell!' exclaimed his master, or whatever relation
he bore.  'And who is to look after the horses, eh?'

'A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the
horses: somebody must go,' murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I
expected.

'Not at your command!' retorted Hareton.  'If you set store on him, you'd
better be quiet.'

'Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will
never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,' she answered,
sharply.

'Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em!' muttered Joseph, towards whom
I had been steering.

He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which
I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on
the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.

'Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern!' shouted the ancient,
pursuing my retreat.  'Hey, Gnasher!  Hey, dog!  Hey Wolf, holld him,
holld him!'

On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing
me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from
Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation.
Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and
yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they
would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their
malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with
wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out--on their peril to keep me
one minute longer--with several incoherent threats of retaliation that,
in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.

The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose,
and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded.  I don't know what
would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand
rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my
entertainer.  This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued
forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar.  She thought that some of
them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her
master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.

'Well, Mr. Earnshaw,' she cried, 'I wonder what you'll have agait next?
Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones?  I see this house
will never do for me--look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking!  Wisht,
wisht; you mun'n't go on so.  Come in, and I'll cure that: there now,
hold ye still.'

With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck,
and pulled me into the kitchen.  Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental
merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.

I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce
to accept lodgings under his roof.  He told Zillah to give me a glass of
brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me
on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was
somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: On a chilly afternoon not long after his first visit, Lockwood plans to lounge before the fire in his study, but he finds a servant dustily sweeping out the fireplace there, so instead he makes the four-mile walk to Wuthering Heights, arriving just as a light snow begins to fall. He knocks, but no one lets him in, and Joseph, an old servant who speaks with a thick Yorkshire accent, calls out from the barn that Heathcliff is not in the house. Eventually a rough-looking young man comes to let him in, and Lockwood goes into a sitting room where he finds a beautiful girl seated beside a fire. Lockwood assumes she is Heathcliff's wife. He tries to make conversation, but she responds rudely. When Heathcliff arrives, he corrects Lockwood: the young woman is his daughter-in-law. Lockwood then assumes that the young man who let him in must be Heathcliff's son. Heathcliff corrects him again. The young man, Hareton Earnshaw, is not his son, and the girl is the widow of Heathcliff's dead son. The snowfall becomes a blizzard, and when Lockwood is ready to leave, he is forced to ask for a guide back to Thrushcross Grange. No one will help him. He takes a lantern and says that he will find his own way, promising to return with the lantern in the morning. Joseph, seeing him make his way through the snow, assumes that he is stealing the lantern, and looses the dogs on him. Pinned down by the dogs, Lockwood grows furious, and begins cursing the inhabitants of the house. His anger brings on a nosebleed, and he is forced to stay at Wuthering Heights. The housekeeper, Zillah, leads him to bed


prompt:
Chapter: While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the
candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the
chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly.
I asked the reason.  She did not know, she answered: she had only lived
there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not
begin to be curious.

Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round
for the bed.  The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press,
and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach
windows.  Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and
perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very
conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the
family having a room to himself.  In fact, it formed a little closet, and
the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.  I slid back
the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and
felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in
one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.  This
writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of
characters, large and small--_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied
to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.

In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued
spelling over Catherine Earnshaw--Heathcliff--Linton, till my eyes
closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white
letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with
Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered
my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the
place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.  I snuffed it off, and, very
ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and
spread open the injured tome on my knee.  It was a Testament, in lean
type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the
inscription--'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a
century back.  I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had
examined all.  Catherine's library was select, and its state of
dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for
a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink
commentary--at least the appearance of one--covering every morsel of
blank that the printer had left.  Some were detached sentences; other
parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish
hand.  At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when
first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature
of my friend Joseph,--rudely, yet powerfully sketched.  An immediate
interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began
forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

'An awful Sunday,' commenced the paragraph beneath.  'I wish my father
were back again.  Hindley is a detestable substitute--his conduct to
Heathcliff is atrocious--H. and I are going to rebel--we took our
initiatory step this evening.

'All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so
Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley
and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire--doing anything
but reading their Bibles, I'll answer for it--Heathcliff, myself, and the
unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we
were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and
hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short
homily for his own sake.  A vain idea!  The service lasted precisely
three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us
descending, "What, done already?"  On Sunday evenings we used to be
permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is
sufficient to send us into corners.

'"You forget you have a master here," says the tyrant.  "I'll demolish
the first who puts me out of temper!  I insist on perfect sobriety and
silence.  Oh, boy! was that you?  Frances darling, pull his hair as you
go by: I heard him snap his fingers."  Frances pulled his hair heartily,
and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they
were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour--foolish
palaver that we should be ashamed of.  We made ourselves as snug as our
means allowed in the arch of the dresser.  I had just fastened our
pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph,
on an errand from the stables.  He tears down my handiwork, boxes my
ears, and croaks:

'"T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o'ered, und t' sound o'
t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking!  Shame on ye! sit ye
down, ill childer! there's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em: sit ye
down, and think o' yer sowls!"

'Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might
receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the
lumber he thrust upon us.  I could not bear the employment.  I took my
dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I
hated a good book.  Heathcliff kicked his to the same place.  Then there
was a hubbub!

'"Maister Hindley!" shouted our chaplain.  "Maister, coom hither!  Miss
Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' Helmet o' Salvation,' un' Heathcliff's
pawsed his fit into t' first part o' 'T' Brooad Way to Destruction!'  It's
fair flaysome that ye let 'em go on this gait.  Ech! th' owd man wad ha'
laced 'em properly--but he's goan!"

'Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of
us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the
back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, "owd Nick" would fetch us as
sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate
nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a
shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got
the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is
impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman's
cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant
suggestion--and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his
prophecy verified--we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we
are here.'

* * * * * *

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up
another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

'How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!' she
wrote.  'My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I
can't give over.  Poor Heathcliff!  Hindley calls him a vagabond, and
won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and
I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if
we break his orders.  He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for
treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right
place--'

* * * * * *

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 grow.  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
grip, 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.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a
candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall
behind him.  The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric
shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his
agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

'It is only your guest, sir,' I called out, desirous to spare him the
humiliation of exposing his cowardice further.  'I had the misfortune to
scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare.  I'm sorry I
disturbed you.'

'Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood!  I wish you were at the--' commenced
my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to
hold it steady.  'And who showed you up into this room?' he continued,
crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the
maxillary convulsions.  'Who was it?  I've a good mind to turn them out
of the house this moment?'

'It was your servant Zillah,' I replied, flinging myself on to the floor,
and rapidly resuming my garments.  'I should not care if you did, Mr.
Heathcliff; she richly deserves it.  I suppose that she wanted to get
another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense.  Well, it
is--swarming with ghosts and goblins!  You have reason in shutting it up,
I assure you.  No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!'

'What do you mean?' asked Heathcliff, 'and what are you doing?  Lie down
and finish out the night, since you _are_ here; but, for heaven's sake!
don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were
having your throat cut!'

'If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have
strangled me!' I returned.  'I'm not going to endure the persecutions of
your hospitable ancestors again.  Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham
akin to you on the mother's side?  And that minx, Catherine Linton, or
Earnshaw, or however she was called--she must have been a
changeling--wicked little soul!  She told me she had been walking the
earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal
transgressions, I've no doubt!'

Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of
Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely
slipped from my memory, till thus awakened.  I blushed at my
inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the
offence, I hastened to add--'The truth is, sir, I passed the first part
of the night in--'  Here I stopped afresh--I was about to say 'perusing
those old volumes,' then it would have revealed my knowledge of their
written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I
went on--'in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge.  A
monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or--'

'What _can_ you mean by talking in this way to _me_!' thundered
Heathcliff with savage vehemence.  'How--how _dare_ you, under my
roof?--God! he's mad to speak so!'  And he struck his forehead with rage.

I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation;
but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with
my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of 'Catherine
Linton' before, but reading it often over produced an impression which
personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control.
Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke;
finally sitting down almost concealed behind it.  I guessed, however, by
his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an
excess of violent emotion.  Not liking to show him that I had heard the
conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and
soliloquised on the length of the night: 'Not three o'clock yet!  I could
have taken oath it had been six.  Time stagnates here: we must surely
have retired to rest at eight!'

'Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,' said my host, suppressing a
groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm's shadow, dashing a
tear from his eyes.  'Mr. Lockwood,' he added, 'you may go into my room:
you'll only be in the way, coming down-stairs so early: and your childish
outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.'

'And for me, too,' I replied.  'I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and
then I'll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion.
I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or
town.  A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.'

'Delightful company!' muttered Heathcliff.  'Take the candle, and go
where you please.  I shall join you directly.  Keep out of the yard,
though, the dogs are unchained; and the house--Juno mounts sentinel
there, and--nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages.  But,
away with you!  I'll come in two minutes!'

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow
lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of
superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent
sense.  He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as
he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.  'Come in! come
in!' he sobbed.  'Cathy, do come.  Oh, do--_once_ more!  Oh! my heart's
darling! hear me _this_ time, Catherine, at last!'  The spectre showed a
spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and
wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out
the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving,
that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry
to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous
nightmare, since it produced that agony; though _why_ was beyond my
comprehension.  I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed
in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together,
enabled me to rekindle my candle.  Nothing was stirring except a
brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a
querulous mew.

Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth;
on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other.  We
were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was
Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through
a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose.  He cast a sinister look at
the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the
cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced
the operation of stuffing a three-inch pipe with tobacco.  My presence in
his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for
remark: he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and
puffed away.  I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out
his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as
solemnly as he came.

A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a
'good-morning,' but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for
Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison _sotto voce_, in a series of
curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a
corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts.  He glanced over
the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of
exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat.  I guessed,
by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch,
made a movement to follow him.  He noticed this, and thrust at an inner
door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that
there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.

It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah
urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs.
Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the
blaze.  She held her hand interposed between the furnace-heat and her
eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to
chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog,
now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face.  I was
surprised to see Heathcliff there also.  He stood by the fire, his back
towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and
anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and
heave an indignant groan.

'And you, you worthless--' he broke out as I entered, turning to his
daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep,
but generally represented by a dash--.  'There you are, at your idle
tricks again!  The rest of them do earn their bread--you live on my
charity!  Put your trash away, and find something to do.  You shall pay
me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight--do you hear,
damnable jade?'

'I'll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,' answered
the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair.  'But I'll
not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I
please!'

Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance,
obviously acquainted with its weight.  Having no desire to be entertained
by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to
partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the
interrupted dispute.  Each had enough decorum to suspend further
hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his
pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off,
where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the
remainder of my stay.  That was not long.  I declined joining their
breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of
escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable
ice.

My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the
garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor.  It was well he did,
for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and
falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground:
many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds,
the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday's
walk left pictured in my mind.  I had remarked on one side of the road,
at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued
through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed
with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a
fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with
the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there,
all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it
necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I
imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.

We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of
Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there.  Our adieux were
limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own
resources; for the porter's lodge is untenanted as yet.  The distance
from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it
four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck
in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can
appreciate.  At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed
twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every
mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.

My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming,
tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that
I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about
the search for my remains.  I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me
returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged up-stairs; whence,
after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty
minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a
kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee
which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine Heathcliff. Catherine Linton. a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with Catherines. Zillah leads Lockwood to an out-of-the-way room from which Heathcliff has forbidden all visitors. He notices that someone has scratched words into the paint on the ledge by the bed. Three names are inscribed there repeatedly: Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Linton, and Catherine Heathcliff. He also finds a diary written approximately twenty-five years earlier. Apparently the diary belonged to Catherine Earnshaw, and Lockwood reads an entry that describes a day at Wuthering Heights shortly after her father died, during which her cruel older brother Hindley forces her and Heathcliff to endure Joseph's tedious sermons. Catherine and Heathcliff seem to have been very close, and Hindley seems to have hated Heathcliff. The diary even describes Hindley telling his wife, Frances, to pull the boy's hair. Lockwood falls asleep and enters into a pair of nightmares. He awakes from the second when the cone from a fir branch begins tapping on his window. Still half asleep, he attempts to break off the branch by forcing his hand through the window glass. But instead of a branch, he finds a ghostly hand, which seizes his own, and a voice, sobbing the name Catherine Linton, demands to be let in. To free himself, Lockwood rubs the ghost's wrist on the broken glass until blood covers the bed sheets. The ghost releases him, and Lockwood tries to cover the hole in the window with a pile of books. But the books begin to fall, and he cries out in terror. Heathcliff rushes into the room, and Lockwood cries out that the room is haunted. Heathcliff curses him, but, as Lockwood flees from the room, Heathcliff cries out to Catherine, begging her to return. There are no signs that the ghost was ever at the window. In the morning, Heathcliff treats his daughter-in-law cruelly. He later escorts Lockwood home, where the servants, who believed their master dead in the storm, receive him with joy. Lockwood, however, retreats into his study to escape human company


prompt:
Chapter: What vain weathercocks we are!  I, who had determined to hold myself
independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at
length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable--I,
weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and
solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence
of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I
desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate
it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse
me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.

'You have lived here a considerable time,' I commenced; 'did you not say
sixteen years?'

'Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her;
after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.'

'Indeed.'

There ensued a pause.  She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her
own affairs, and those could hardly interest me.  However, having studied
for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation
over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated--'Ah, times are greatly
changed since then!'

'Yes,' I remarked, 'you've seen a good many alterations, I suppose?'

'I have: and troubles too,' she said.

'Oh, I'll turn the talk on my landlord's family!' I thought to myself.  'A
good subject to start!  And that pretty girl-widow, I should like to know
her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more
probable, an exotic that the surly _indigenae_ will not recognise for
kin.'  With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let
Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so
much inferior.  'Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?'
I inquired.

'Rich, sir!' she returned.  'He has nobody knows what money, and every
year it increases.  Yes, yes, he's rich enough to live in a finer house
than this: but he's very near--close-handed; and, if he had meant to flit
to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not
have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more.  It is
strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!'

'He had a son, it seems?'

'Yes, he had one--he is dead.'

'And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?'

'Yes.'

'Where did she come from originally?'

'Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter: Catherine Linton was her
maiden name.  I nursed her, poor thing!  I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would
remove here, and then we might have been together again.'

'What!  Catherine Linton?' I exclaimed, astonished.  But a minute's
reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine.  'Then,' I
continued, 'my predecessor's name was Linton?'

'It was.'

'And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr.
Heathcliff?  Are they relations?'

'No; he is the late Mrs. Linton's nephew.'

'The young lady's cousin, then?'

'Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother's, the other
on the father's side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton's sister.'

'I see the house at Wuthering Heights has "Earnshaw" carved over the
front door.  Are they an old family?'

'Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of
us--I mean, of the Lintons.  Have you been to Wuthering Heights?  I beg
pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!'

'Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think,
not very happy.'

'Oh dear, I don't wonder!  And how did you like the master?'

'A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean.  Is not that his character?

'Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone!  The less you meddle with
him the better.'

'He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.  Do
you know anything of his history?'

'It's a cuckoo's, sir--I know all about it: except where he was born, and
who were his parents, and how he got his money at first.  And Hareton has
been cast out like an unfledged dunnock!  The unfortunate lad is the only
one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated.'

'Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my
neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to
sit and chat an hour.'

'Oh, certainly, sir!  I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit
as long as you please.  But you've caught cold: I saw you shivering, and
you must have some gruel to drive it out.'

The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head
felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to a
pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain.  This caused me to
feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious
effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday.  She returned
presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having
placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find
me so companionable.

Before I came to live here, she commenced--waiting no farther invitation
to her story--I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother
had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got
used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped to make
hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me
to.  One fine summer morning--it was the beginning of harvest, I
remember--Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came down-stairs, dressed for a
journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the
day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me--for I sat eating my
porridge with them--and he said, speaking to his son, 'Now, my bonny man,
I'm going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you?  You may choose
what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back:
sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!'  Hindley named a fiddle, and
then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could
ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip.  He did not forget
me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes.  He
promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed
his children, said good-bye, and set off.

It seemed a long while to us all--the three days of his absence--and
often did little Cathy ask when he would be home.  Mrs. Earnshaw expected
him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour
after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the
children got tired of running down to the gate to look.  Then it grew
dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed
to stay up; and, just about eleven o'clock, the door-latch was raised
quietly, and in stepped the master.  He threw himself into a chair,
laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly
killed--he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.

'And at the end of it to be flighted to death!' he said, opening his
great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms.  'See here, wife!  I
was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e'en take it
as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the
devil.'

We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty,
ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its
face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet, it
only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that
nobody could understand.  I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready
to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to
bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to
feed and fend for?  What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad?
The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with
fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale
of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the
streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner.
Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time
being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at
once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he
would not leave it as he found it.  Well, the conclusion was, that my
mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and
give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.

Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till
peace was restored: then, both began searching their father's pockets
for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen,
but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the
great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master
had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by
grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains
a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They
entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and
I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it
might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his
voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on
quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was
obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity
was sent out of the house.

This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family.  On coming back a
few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I
found they had christened him 'Heathcliff': it was the name of a son who
died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian
and surname.  Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated
him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with
him shamefully: for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and
the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.

He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment:
he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my
pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he
had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame.  This endurance
made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the
poor fatherless child, as he called him.  He took to Heathcliff
strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious
little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who
was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at
Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the
young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than
a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his
privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries.  I
sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I
had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed
my idea.  Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst
he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good
deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it.
However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse
watched over.  The difference between him and the others forced me to be
less partial.  Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as
uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give
little trouble.

He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing
to me, and praised me for my care.  I was vain of his commendations, and
softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley
lost his last ally: still I couldn't dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered
often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never,
to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude.  He
was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though
knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only
to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes.  As an
instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the
parish fair, and gave the lads each one.  Heathcliff took the handsomest,
but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley--

'You must exchange horses with me: I don't like mine; and if you won't I
shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week,
and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.'  Hindley put out
his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears.  'You'd better do it at once,'
he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): 'you will
have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with
interest.'  'Off, dog!' cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron
weight used for weighing potatoes and hay.  'Throw it,' he replied,
standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn
me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you
out directly.'  Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he
fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I
prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full
revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused
it.  'Take my colt, Gipsy, then!' said young Earnshaw.  'And I pray that
he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper!
and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what
you are, imp of Satan.--And take that, I hope he'll kick out your
brains!'

Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall; he
was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him
under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were
fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could.  I was surprised to witness how
coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention;
exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to
overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered
the house.  I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises
on the horse: he minded little what tale was told since he had what he
wanted.  He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I
really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will
hear.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Having rejected human contact the day before, Lockwood now becomes lonely. When his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, brings him his supper, he bids her sit and tell him the history of the people at Wuthering Heights. She attempts to clarify the family relationships, explaining that the young Catherine whom Lockwood met at Wuthering Heights is the daughter of the Catherine who was Nelly's first mistress at Wuthering Heights, and that Hareton Earnshaw is young Catherine's cousin, the nephew of the first Catherine. The first Catherine was the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw, the late proprietor of Wuthering Heights. Now young Catherine is the last of the Lintons, and Hareton is the last of the Earnshaws. Nelly says that she grew up as a servant at Wuthering Heights, alongside Catherine and her brother Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw's children. Nelly continues by telling the story of her early years at Wuthering Heights. When Catherine and Hindley are young children, Mr. Earnshaw takes a trip to Liverpool and returns home with a scraggly orphan whom the Earnshaws christen "Heathcliff. Mr. Earnshaw announces that Heathcliff will be raised as a member of the family. Both Catherine and Hindley resent Heathcliff at first, but Catherine quickly grows to love him. Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable, and Hindley, who continues to treat Heathcliff cruelly, falls into disfavor with his family. Mrs. Earnshaw continues to distrust Heathcliff, but Mr. Earnshaw comes to love the boy more than his own son. When Mrs. Earnshaw dies only two years after Heathcliff's arrival at Wuthering Heights, Hindley is essentially left without an ally


prompt:
Chapter: In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and
healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to
the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him;
and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This
was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or
domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word
should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the
notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do
him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among
us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and
that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black
tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice,
Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the
old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with
rage that he could not do it.

At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by
teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land
himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr.
Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said--'Hindley was
nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.'

I hoped heartily we should have peace now.  It hurt me to think the
master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed.  I fancied the
discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he
would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking
frame.  We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two
people--Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up
yonder.  He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous
Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and
fling the curses to his neighbours.  By his knack of sermonising and
pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr.
Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he
gained.  He was relentless in worrying him about his soul's concerns, and
about ruling his children rigidly.  He encouraged him to regard Hindley
as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long
string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to
flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.

Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up
before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener
in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to
bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief.  Her
spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing,
laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same.  A wild,
wicked slip she was--but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile,
and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no
harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened
that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you
might comfort her.  She was much too fond of Heathcliff.  The greatest
punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet
she got chided more than any of us on his account.  In play, she liked
exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and
commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear
slapping and ordering; and so I let her know.

Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had
always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had
no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition than he was in his prime.  His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were
all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look,
and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule,
baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her
pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over
Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in
anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination.  After
behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to
make it up at night.  'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love
thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother.  Go, say thy prayers, child, and
ask God's pardon.  I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared
thee!'  That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually
hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her
faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth.
He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fire-side.  A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all
together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and
Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat
in the house then, after their work was done).  Miss Cathy had been sick,
and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and
Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap.  I remember
the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair--it
pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and saying, 'Why canst thou not
always be a good lass, Cathy?'  And she turned her face up to his, and
laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?'  But
as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she
would sing him to sleep.  She began singing very low, till his fingers
dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast.  Then I told her to
hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him.  We all kept as mute as
mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph,
having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the
master for prayers and bed.  He stepped forward, and called him by name,
and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle
and looked at him.  I thought there was something wrong as he set down
the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to
'frame up-stairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that
evening--he had summut to do.'

'I shall bid father good-night first,' said Catherine, putting her arms
round his neck, before we could hinder her.  The poor thing discovered
her loss directly--she screamed out--'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's
dead!'  And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we
could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven.  He told
me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson.
I could not guess the use that either would be of, then.  However, I
went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me;
the other said he would come in the morning.  Leaving Joseph to explain
matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they
had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer,
and did not need me to console them.  The little souls were comforting
each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in
the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their
innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing
we were all there safe together.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Time passes, and Mr. Earnshaw grows frail and weak. Disgusted by the conflict between Heathcliff and Hindley, he sends Hindley away to college. Joseph's fanatical religious beliefs appeal to Mr. Earnshaw as he nears the end of his life, and the old servant exerts more and more sway over his master. Soon, however, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and it is now Catherine and Heathcliff who turn to religion for comfort. They discuss the idea of heaven while awaiting the return of Hindley, who will now be master of Wuthering Heights


prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and--a thing that amazed us, and
set the neighbours gossiping right and left--he brought a wife with him.
What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she
had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have
kept the union from his father.

She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own
account.  Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold,
appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about
her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the
mourners.  I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that
went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I
should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and
clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly--'Are they gone yet?'  Then she
began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to
see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping--and
when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know; but she felt
so afraid of dying!  I imagined her as little likely to die as myself.
She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes
sparkled as bright as diamonds.  I did remark, to be sure, that mounting
the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set
her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I
knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to
sympathise with her.  We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr.
Lockwood, unless they take to us first.

Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his
absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed
quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph
and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back-kitchen, and
leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a
small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at
the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and
delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in
where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort,
and so dropped the intention.

She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new
acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran
about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning.
Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish,
Hindley became tyrannical.  A few words from her, evincing a dislike to
Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy.  He
drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the
instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of
doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the
farm.

Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy
taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields.
They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master
being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they
kept clear of him.  He would not even have seen after their going to
church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his
carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to
order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper.
But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the
morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere
thing to laugh at.  The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased
for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till
his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together
again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of
revenge; and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more
reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing
the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures.  One
Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting-room,
for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to
call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere.  We searched the
house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible:
and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore
nobody should let them in that night.  The household went to bed; and I,
too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to
hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the
prohibition, should they return.  In a while, I distinguished steps
coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the
gate.  I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking
Mr. Earnshaw by knocking.  There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a
start to see him alone.

'Where is Miss Catherine?' I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope?' 'At
Thrushcross Grange,' he answered; 'and I would have been there too, but
they had not the manners to ask me to stay.' 'Well, you will catch it!'
I said: 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business.
What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?' 'Let me get
off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly,' he replied.
I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I
waited to put out the candle, he continued--'Cathy and I escaped from
the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the
Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons
passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their
father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and
burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading
sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a
column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?' 'Probably
not,' I responded. 'They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve
the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct.' 'Don't cant, Nelly,'
he said: 'nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park,
without stopping--Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she
was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We
crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted
ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came
from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were
only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the
basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw--ah! it was beautiful--a
splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and
tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of
glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering
with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar
and his sisters had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been
happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what
your good children were doing? Isabella--I believe she is eleven, a year
younger than Cathy--lay screaming at the farther end of the room,
shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar
stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat
a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual
accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them.
The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap
of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to
get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we
did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine
wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and
sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not
exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at
Thrushcross Grange--not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph
off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley's
blood!'

'Hush, hush!' I interrupted.  'Still you have not told me, Heathcliff,
how Catherine is left behind?'

'I told you we laughed,' he answered. 'The Lintons heard us, and with
one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and
then a cry, "Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa,
oh!" They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful
noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge,
because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I
had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell
down. "Run, Heathcliff, run!" she whispered. "They have let the bull-dog
loose, and he holds me!" The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard
his abominable snorting. She did not yell out--no! she would have
scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I
did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in
Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried
with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came
up with a lantern, at last, shouting--"Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!"
He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was
throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his
mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took
Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He
carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What
prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a
little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added,
making a clutch at me, "who looks an out-and-outer! Very like the
robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to
the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease.
Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the
gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun." "No, no,
Robert," said the old fool. "The rascals knew that yesterday was my
rent-day: they thought to have me cleverly. Come in; I'll furnish them a
reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water,
Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too!
Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be
afraid, it is but a boy--yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face;
would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he
shows his nature in acts as well as features?" He pulled me under the
chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised
her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella
lisping--"Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly
like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't
he, Edgar?"

'While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and
laughed.  Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient
wit to recognise her.  They see us at church, you know, though we seldom
meet them elsewhere.  "That's Miss Earnshaw?" he whispered to his mother,
"and look how Skulker has bitten her--how her foot bleeds!"

'"Miss Earnshaw?  Nonsense!" cried the dame; "Miss Earnshaw scouring the
country with a gipsy!  And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning--surely
it is--and she may be lamed for life!"

'"What culpable carelessness in her brother!" exclaimed Mr. Linton,
turning from me to Catherine.  "I've understood from Shielders"' (that
was the curate, sir) '"that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism.
But who is this?  Where did she pick up this companion?  Oho! I declare
he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to
Liverpool--a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway."

'"A wicked boy, at all events," remarked the old lady, "and quite unfit
for a decent house!  Did you notice his language, Linton?  I'm shocked
that my children should have heard it."

'I recommenced cursing--don't be angry, Nelly--and so Robert was ordered
to take me off.  I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the
garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw
should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly,
secured the door again.  The curtains were still looped up at one corner,
and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to
return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of
fragments, unless they let her out.  She sat on the sofa quietly.  Mrs.
Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we had borrowed
for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I
suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her
treatment and mine.  Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm
water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and
Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping
at a distance.  Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and
gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I
left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little
dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark
of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons--a dim reflection from
her own enchanting face.  I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she
is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not,
Nelly?'

'There will more come of this business than you reckon on,' I answered,
covering him up and extinguishing the light.  'You are incurable,
Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if
he won't.'  My words came truer than I desired.  The luckless adventure
made Earnshaw furious.  And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a
visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on
the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in
earnest.  Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first
word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs.
Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she
returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found
it impossible.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Hindley and his new wife, a simpering, silly woman named Frances, return to Wuthering Heights in time for Mr. Earnshaw's funeral. Hindley immediately begins to take his revenge on Heathcliff, declaring that Heathcliff no longer will be allowed an education and instead will spend his days working in the fields like a common laborer. But, for the most part, Catherine and Heathcliff are able to escape Hindley's notice, and when Heathcliff is free from his responsibilities they go off onto the moors together to play. One evening, when Heathcliff and Catherine disappear, Hindley orders that the doors be bolted and that the children not be allowed into the house. Despite his charge, Nelly waits for them, and receives a shock when Heathcliff returns alone. He tells her that he and Catherine made the trip to Thrushcross Grange to spy on and tease Edgar and Isabella Linton, Mr. Linton's children. Before they could succeed in their mission, Skulker, the Lintons' guard dog, took them by surprise and chased them, biting Catherine's ankle. Unable to return home, Catherine was taken inside Thrushcross Grange by a servant. However, the Lintons, repelled by Heathcliff's rough appearance, forbade her playmate to stay with her. The following day, Mr. Linton pays a visit to Wuthering Heights to explain matters to Hindley and upbraids the young man for his mismanagement of Catherine. After Mr. Linton leaves, the humiliated Hindley furiously tells Heathcliff that he may have no further contact with Catherine