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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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21 continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; “I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn’t die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!” “Oh, wicked, wicked!” gasped the elder; “may the Lord deliver us from evil!” “No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or I’ll hurt you seriously! I’ll have you all modelled in wax and clay; and the first who passes the limits I fix, shall--I’ll not say what he shall be done to--but, you’ll see! Go, I’m looking at you!” The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out praying and ejaculating “wicked” as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress. “Mrs. Heathcliff,” I said earnestly, “you must excuse me for troubling you--I presume, because, with that face, I’m sure you cannot help being good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home. I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!” “Take the road you came,” she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her. “It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give.” “Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won’t whisper that it is partly your fault?” “How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn’t let me go to the end of the garden-wall.” |
