Wuthering Heights

Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy
reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested
any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late
mistress’s death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the
library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he
would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine
was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March
was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young
lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a
ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave,
if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.

“So make haste, Ellen!” she cried. “I know where I wish to go; where a
colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made
their nests yet.”

“That must be a good distance up,” I answered; “they don’t breed on the
edge of the moor.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “I’ve gone very near with papa.”

I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the
matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off