Chapter 8

Hindley becomes master

01 In the course of time, Mr Earnshaw's health began to fail. His strength left him suddenly, and he became easily annoyed. He got it into his head that because he liked Heathcliff, everyone hated the boy and wished to do him harm. It was a disadvantage to young Heathcliff, because as we didn't wish to upset the master, we all, except his son, yielded to him, and this was an encouragement to the boy's pride and black temper. Hindley's expressions of scorn moved his father to fury: Mr Earnshaw would seize his stick to strike him, and shake with anger at his own helplessness.

02 At last our curate, who earned some extra money by teaching the young Lintons and Earnshaws, advised that that young man should be sent away to college, and Mr Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy heart.

03 I hoped we should have peace now, and so we might have, but for Miss Cathy and Joseph. Night after night the old servant had a string of complaints against Heathcliff and Cathy. As for Cathy, certainly she had ways such as I never saw in a child before. She put us out of patience fifty times and more in a day. From the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed, we hadn't a minute's rest from her naughtiness. Her spirits were always high, her tongue was always going—singing, laughing, disturbing everybody who wouldn't do the same. She was a wild, wicked young thing, but she had the prettiest eye, and sweetest smile, and lightest foot in our part of the country, and after all, I think she meant no harm. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separated from him, though she got scolded more than any of us on his account.

04 The hour came at last that ended Mr Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening.

05 Mr Hindley came home for the funeral, and, a thing that set the neighbours whispering right and left, he brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us. Probably she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would never have kept his marriage secret from his father.

06 She was rather thin, but young and fresh, and her eyes were bright as diamonds. I did notice, it's true, that going upstairs made her breathe rather fast, and that she coughed rather badly sometimes.

07 Young Earnshaw had changed during the three years of his absence. He spoke and dressed quite differently. His wife expressed pleasure at having Cathy as a sister, kissed her, and gave her quantities of presents. Her affection didn't last very long, however, and a few words from her, mentioning a dislike for Heathcliff, were enough to stir up in her husband all his former hate for the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, stopped his education with the curate, and made him work as hard as any other boy on the farm.

08 Heathcliff bore his treatment fairly well at first, because Cathy taught him all she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They were both growing up quite rude and wild, the young master being entirely careless of how they behaved, so long as they kept away from him.

09 One of their chief amusements was to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day. The punishment that followed was a mere thing to be laughed at: they forgot everything the minute they were together again.