h reason I imagined, for
he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be
called _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude,
that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for
her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect
of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff
quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were
a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also. His
abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God
had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an
evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring
and destroy.

CHAPTER XI

Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a
sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm.
I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people
talked regarding his ways; and then I've recollected his confirmed bad
habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re-entering
the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word.

One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to
Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a
bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I
came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your
left hand; a rough sand-pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north
side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T. G. It serves as a
guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone yellow
on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all
at once a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart. Hindley and I
held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed long at the
weather-worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom
still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing
there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared
that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark,
square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth
with a piece of slate. 'Poor Hindley!' I exclaimed, involuntarily. I
started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the
child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a