Wuthering Heights / Грозовой перевал. Уровень 3

While I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.'

Well, sir, you must allow me to pass to the next summer – the summer of 1778, that is, nearly twenty-three years ago.

Chapter VIII

On the morning of a fine June day my first little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw family, was born. We were busy with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.

'Oh, such a grand baby!' she panted out.

'The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says Missis will die. He says she's been in a consumption these many months. You must come home directly. Nurse it, Nelly!'

When we got to Wuthering Heights, Mr. Earnshaw stood at the front door; and, as I passed in, I asked,

'How is the baby?'

'Nearly ready, Nell!' he replied, with a cheerful smile.

'And the mistress? The doctor says she's – '

'Damn the doctor!' he interrupted. 'Frances is quite right: she'll be perfectly well by this time next week.

Are you going upstairs? Will you tell her that I'll come, if she promise not to talk? I left her because she did not hold her tongue. And she must – tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.'

Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that heart never failed her; and her husband was affirming furiously that her health improved every day. She seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, and trying to get up, a fit of coughing took her – a very slight one.

He raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.

As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw was contented with it. For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long.

Joseph and I were the only two that stayed.

The master's behaviour formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, the lad was possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption. Nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy were an exception.