`We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished.Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended the whole attendance.The six men departed when they had let it down into the grave: we stayed to see it covered.Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds--and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly.But the country folk, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even in this house.Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I.Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on `em, looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death: and an odd thing happened to me about a month ago.
I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark evening, threatening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
"What's the matter, my little man?' I asked.
`There's Heathcliff and a woman, yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, `un' I darnut pass `em.'
I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on; so Ibid him take the road lower down.He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat.Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark now; and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house:
I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.
`They are going to the Grange, then,' I said.
`Yes,' answered Mrs Dean, `is soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year's Day.'
`And who will live here, then?'
`Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company.They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.'
`For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it,' I observed.
`No, Mr Lockwood,' said Nelly, shaking her head.`I believe the dead are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.'
At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.
`They are afraid of nothing,' I grumbled, watching their approach through the window.`Together they would brave Satan and all his legions.'
As they stepped on to the doorstones, and halted to take a last look at the moon--or, more correctly, at each other by her light--I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door; and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognized me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk.`When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months: many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass;and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.
I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in heath: Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot: Heathcliff's still bare.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
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