he
asked authoritatively.
Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait
till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and
Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in,
after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and
replied--'Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it?
Mincing un' munching! How can I tell whet ye say?'
'I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!' I cried, thinking him
deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.
'None o' me! I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his
work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and
countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure,
as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.
I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which
I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might
show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt
man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features
were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and _his_
eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty
annihilated.
'What's your business here?' he demanded, grimly. 'Who are you?'
'My name was Isabella Linton,' I replied. 'You've seen me before, sir.
I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I
suppose, by your permission.'
'Is he come back, then?' asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.
'Yes--we came just now,' I said; 'but he left me by the kitchen door; and
when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the
place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.'
'It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!' growled my future
host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering
Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and
threats of what he would have done had the 'fiend' deceived him.
I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to
slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that
intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re-fastened the door. There
was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose
floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter-dishes,
which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook
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