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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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254 uttered a scornful laugh. “God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that’s worse than I expected--and the devil knows I was not sanguine!” I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter. He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father’s speech, or whether it were intended for him; indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father; but he clung to me with growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff’s taking a seat, and bidding him “come hither”, he hid his face on my shoulder, and wept. “Tut, tut!” said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin. “None of that nonsense! We’re not going to hurt thee, Linton--isn’t that thy name? Thou art thy mother’s child, entirely! Where is my share in thee, puling chicken?” He took off the boy’s cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector. “Do you know me?” asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble. “No,” said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear. “You’ve heard of me, I daresay?” “No,” he replied again. “No? What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me! You are my son, then, I’ll tell you; and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father |
