as 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.

CHAPTER III

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, ver