Wuthering Heights

floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock’s; and this—I should
know it among a thousand—it’s a lapwing’s. Bonny bird; wheeling over
our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for
the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This
feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its
nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap
over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he’d never
shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn’t. Yes, here are more! Did he
shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.”

“Give over with that baby-work!” I interrupted, dragging the pillow
away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing
its contents by handfuls. “Lie down and shut your eyes: you’re
wandering. There’s a mess! The down is flying about like snow.”

I went here and there collecting it.

“I see in you, Nelly,” she continued dreamily, “an aged woman: you have
grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under
Penistone Crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers;
pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That’s