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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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372 me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath. I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged by one thin, blue wreath curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the house-steps, smoking a meditative pipe. “Is Mrs. Dean within?” I demanded of the dame. “Mistress Dean? Nay!” she answered, “shoo doesn’t bide here; shoo’s up at th’ Heights.” “Are you the housekeeper, then?” I continued. “Eea, Aw keep th’ hause,” she replied. “Well, I’m Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay here all night.” “T’ maister!” she cried in astonishment. “Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha’ send word! They’s nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t’ place; nowt there isn’t!” She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition. I bid her be composed: I would go out for a walk; and, meantime, she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No sweeping and dusting, only good fires and dry sheets were necessary. She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the |
