Wuthering Heights

stark; and so you’ll allow it was useless making more stir
about him!’
The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered:
‘I’d rayther he’d goan hisseln for t’ doctor! I sud ha,’ taen
tent o’ t’ maister better nor him and he warn’t deead when I
left, naught o’ t’ soart!’
I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff
said I might have my own way there too: only, he desired
me to remember that the money for the whole affair came
out of his pocket. He maintained a hard, careless deportment,
indicative of neither joy nor sorrow: if anything, it
expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work
successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something
like exultation in his aspect: it was just when the people
were bearing the coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy
to represent a mourner: and previous to following with
Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and
muttered, with peculiar gusto, ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are
MINE! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as
another, with the same wind to twist it!’ The unsuspecting
thing was pleased at this speech: he played with Heathcliff’s
whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning,
and observed tartly, ‘That boy must go back with me to
Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in the world less
yours than he is!’
‘Does Linton say so?’ he demanded.
‘Of course he has ordered me to take him,’ I replied.
‘Well,’ said the scoundrel, ‘we’ll not argue the subject
now: but I have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young
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