"Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee; and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of.
"We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, aad hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks,
"'T'maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath nut oe'red, and t'saland, uh't gospel still i' yer luga, and yah darr be laiking!—shame on ye! sit ye dahn, ill childer! they's good books enough if ye'll read 'em; sit ye dahn, and think uh yer sowls!'
"Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive, from the far-off fire, a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us.
"I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book.
"Heathcliff kicked his to the same place.
"Then there was a hubbub!
"Maister Hindley!' shoated our chaplain. 'Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy's riven th' back off Th' Helmet uh Salvation, un' Heathcliff's pawsed his fit intuh t' first part uh T' Brooad Way to Destruction! It's fair flaysome ut yah let 'em goa on this gidt. Ech! th' owd man ud uh laced 'em properly—bud he's goan!'
"Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and, seizing one of us by the collar and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back kitchen, where, Joseph asseverated, 'owd Nick' would fetch us as sure as we were living; and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent.
"I reached this book and a pot of ink from the shelf; and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairy-woman's cloak and have a scamper on the moors under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we can not be damper or colder in the rain than we are here."
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