uest, eighteen
years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn
landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the
apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid
head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliff
advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. There
was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his
frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherine
had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him.

'Stop!' he said, arresting her by the arm. 'No more runnings away! Where
would you go? I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you'll be a dutiful
daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I was
embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business:
he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you'll see by his
look that he has received his due! I brought him down one evening, the
day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him
afterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves. In
two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then my
presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees me
often, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the
night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and,
whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he's your
concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.'

'Why not let Catherine continue here,' I pleaded, 'and send Master Linton
to her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them: they can only be a
daily plague to your unnatural heart.'

'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want my
children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her services
for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after
Linton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me to
compel you.'

'I shall,' said Catherine. 'Linton is all I have to love in the world,
and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me
to him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to hurt him
when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!'

'You are a boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like you
well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment,
as l