Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 2 (Wuthering Heights, Volume 2).djvu/50

42 free, and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a signal revenge.

"Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober, for the purpose—tolerably sober; not going to-bed mad, at six o'clock and getting up drunk, at twelve. Consequently, he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church, as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire, and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.

"Heathcliff—I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house from last Sunday till to-day—Whether the angels have fed him, or his kin beneath, I cannot tell; but, he has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a week—He has just come home at dawn, and gone up-stairs to his chamber; locking himself in—as if anybody dreamt of coveting his company! There he has continued, praying like a methodist; only the deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed, was