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.

 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

