Грозовой перевал / Wuthering Heights

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.

�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![23 - An unfledged dunnock – молодая лесная птица.] 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.