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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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378 remarking or addressing him--and though he was always as sullen and silent as possible--after a while, she changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder how he could endure the life he lived--how he could sit a whole evening staring into the fire, and dozing. “He’s just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?” she once observed, “or a carthorse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps, eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if you do, what is it about? But you can’t speak to me!” Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look again. “He’s perhaps dreaming now,” she continued. “He twitched his shoulder as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen.” “Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you upstairs, if you don’t behave!” I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his fist, as if tempted to use it. “I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,” she exclaimed, on another occasion. “He is afraid I shall laugh at him. Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once; and because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it--was he not a fool?” “Were not you naughty?” I said; “answer me that.” “Perhaps I was,” she went on; “but I did not expect him to be so silly. Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I’ll try!” She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck. |
