as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he
would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine
was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March
was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young
lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble
on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we
went only a short distance and were back within the hour.

'So make haste, Ellen!' she cried. 'I know where I wish to go; where a
colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made
their nests yet.'

'That must be a good distance up,' I answered; 'they don't breed on the
edge of the moor.'

'No, it's not,' she said. 'I've gone very near with papa.'

I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter.
She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a
young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in
listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm
sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden
ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in
its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure.
She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she
could not be content.

'Well,' said I, 'where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be at
them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.'

'Oh, a little further--only a little further, Ellen,' was her answer,
continually. 'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you
reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.'

But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at
length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our
steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she
either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was
compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came
in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than
her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I
felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.

Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting
out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he
was reproving the poacher.

'I've neither taken any nor found any,' she said, as I