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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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135 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 twinkling; but immediately I felt an irrestible yearning to be at the Heights. Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse--‘Supposing he should be dead!’ I thought--or should die soon!--supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb. The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate. That was my first idea on observing an elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars. Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, my Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since. “God bless thee, darling!” I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears. “Hareton, it’s Nelly--Nelly, thy nurse.” He retreated out of arm’s length, and picked up a large flint. “I am come to see thy father, Hareton,” I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognized as one with me. He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay the hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold, as if he |
