Wuthering Heights

any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more
peremptory: there was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was
not going to rouse him from his sleep.

“Tell Mr. Heathcliff,” he answered calmly, “that his son shall come to
Wuthering Heights to-morrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the
distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired
him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is
very precarious.”

“Noa!” said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and
assuming an authoritative air. “Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks
noa ’count o’ t’ mother, nor ye norther; but he’ll hev his lad; und I
mun tak’ him—soa now ye knaw!”

“You shall not to-night!” answered Linton decisively. “Walk down stairs
at once, and repeat to your master what I have said. Ellen, show him
down. Go—”

And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room
of him and closed the door.

“Varrah weell!” shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. “To-morn, he’s
come hisseln, and thrust _him_ out, if ye darr!”




CHAPTER XX


To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton
commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine’s pony; and,