Hindley Earnshaw

“ Passionate, insane constancy in Heathcliff; perverse, but intense in the elder Catharine; steady and holy in Edgar Linton; even the hard and narrow Ellen Dean; even Joseph, the hypocritical Pharisee, are constant until death. Wild Hindley Earnshaw drinks himself to death for grief at losing his consumptive wife; Hareton loves to the end the man who has usurped his place, degraded him, fed him on blows and exaction: and it is constancy in absence that embitters and sickens the younger Catharine. Even Isabella Heathcliff, weak as she is, is not fickle. ”

“ Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—“Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.”
I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. ”

“ Life with Heathcliff becoming impossible to Isabella, she left the neighbourhood, never to revisit it, and lived near London; and there her son, whom she christened Linton, was born a few months after her escape. He was an ailing, peevish creature. When Linton was twelve, or a little more, and Catherine thirteen, Isabella died, and the boy was brought to Thrushcross Grange. Hindley Earnshaw drank himself to death about the same time, after mortgaging every yard of his land for cash; and Heathcliff was the mortgagee. ”

“ John Reed we have now seen was, like Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine's [Pg 79] brother, drawn by Charlotte Brontë from her brother Branwell Brontë. Always she wrote of him vindictively, and with a retributive justice, her strong characteristic. At about the period when Currer Bell was penning Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre Branwell was a source of considerable distress to her. He was disgraced; his habits were the reverse of temperate, and it was daily feared that in a fit of delirium he might make an attempt upon his own life. ”

“ Hareton does not inherit Hindley's drunkenness or his cruelty. It is not through any physical consequence of his father's vices that Hareton suffers. Linton is in no physical sense the son of Heathcliff. If Catherine Linton inherits something of Catherine Earnshaw's charm and temper, it is because the younger Catherine belongs to another world; she is an inferior and more physical creature. She has nothing in her of Catherine Earnshaw's mutinous passion, the immortal and unearthly passion which made that Catherine alive and killed her. ”

“ Linton spoke strongly, and yet, I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually; and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land; and does nothing but play and drink, I heard only a week ago; it was Joseph who told me—I met him at Gimmerton. ”

“ And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he? And I won’t come suing for his assistance; nor will I bring him into more trouble. Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here; though, if I had not learned he was out of the way, I’d have halted at the kitchen, washed my face, warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to anywhere out of the reach of my accursed—of that incarnate goblin! Ah, he was in such a fury! If he had caught me! It’s a pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength: I wouldn’t have run till I’d seen him all but demolished, had Hindley been able to do it! ”

“ As Catherine, Charlotte Brontë calls Hindley "a tyrant" in this connection, and as Jane Eyre she calls John Reed "a tyrant" here. Branwell, as John Reed, is made to tell Jane in connection with this incident that "all this house belongs to me, or will do"; and as Hindley Earnshaw he tells his sister Catherine, "You forget you have a master here." By Charlotte Brontë's Method II., altering the age of a character portrayed, Branwell is represented in the Wuthering Heights scene as a man in years. ”

“ To what a home did the tired feet and aching limbs bring these eager searchers after knowledge! To a ‘grey parsonage standing among graves, on a wind-beaten hill-top; the neighbouring summits wild with moors. A lonely [393] place, among half-dead ash trees and stunted thorns. The world cut off on one side by the still ranks of the serried dead; distanced on the other by mile-wide stretches of heath.’ Such, we know, was Emily Brontë’s home, the vicinity inhabited by Catharine, by Heathcliff, by Earnshaw, and Hindley.
‘Oh, what a dreadful place to live in!’ cried Hermione ”

“ I whispered. "And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because, he's only half a man—not so much."
Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe; who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him; the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features.
"Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy," groaned the impatient man writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle. ”

“ The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible. ”

“ It is because an Earnshaw and a Linton between them have robbed him of all that he possessed, that, when his hour comes, he pays himself back by robbing the Lintons and the Earnshaws of all that they possess, their Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. He loathes above all loathely creatures, Linton, his own son by Isabella. The white-blooded thing is so sickly that he can hardly keep it alive. But with an unearthly cruelty he cherishes, he nourishes this spawn till he can marry it on its death-bed to the younger Catherine, the child of Catherine Earnshaw and of Edgar Linton. ”

“ This endurance made old Earnshaw furious when he discovered his son persecuting the poor, fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing, all he said, (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth,) and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite. ”

“ Major Evelyn and another man, a cheerful little blonde boy named Earnshaw, had got a few days leave from the Curragh. Their presence imposed a certain restraint upon Terry in regard to his love-making—otherwise it must have been obvious even to his father, despite that growing absent-mindedness which enfolded Shawn O'Gara like a mist.
Eileen seemed happy once again. Lady O'Gara began to reproach herself; doubtless Castle Talbot in Winter was a lonesome place for the young. Young Earnshaw was obviously épris with Stella, while Major Evelyn, a big, laughing brown man, attached himself to Eileen. ”

“ Earnshaw said. 'In the first place, we don't want to do more than carry out the rope to its full length; in the next place, we don't want to make more noise than we can help. What wind there is is fortunately blowing seaward, and being so close under the cliff the sound will be echoed back. At the same time the less noise the better.'
“'I will begin with very little, sir. If the ball don't go to the top of the cliff I shall put a trifle more into the gun next time ”

“ Mr. Hindley, who had been to college, came home to the funeral, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left, for he brought a wife with him. What she was and where she was born he never informed us. She evinced a dislike to Heathcliff, and drove him to the company of the servants, but Cathy clung to him, and the two promised to grow up together as rude as savages. Once Hindley shut them out for the night and they came to Thrushcross Grange, where the Lintons took Cathy in, but would not have anything to do with Heathcliff, the Spanish castaway, as they called him. ”

“ I was coming back from that way, I now remember, when I met you, sir, at Brighton that time. I buy my ballads at various places—but now mostly over the water, because I live there now and it’s handiest. Mr. Such, the printer, in Union-street in the Borough. Oh! yes, some at Catnach’s—leastways, it ain’t Catnach’s now, it’s Fortey’s. Yes, I remember ‘old Jemmy Catnach’ very well; he wa’n’t a bad sort, as you say ”

“ You will speak to him? You angel! Tell him how impossible it is that Stella and I could give up each other. You love her, Mother, don't you? The bird-like thing! I remember you said at first that she was like a bird. She has flown into my heart and I cannot turn her out. Say..."
"I will say all I Can, Terry. Do you feel fit to go back to the others?"
"They don't want me. They are quite happy knocking about the billiard-balls. Evelyn would know, and I don't think I could stand little Earnshaw's chaffing ways." ”

“ I—I leave you here.”
“But where are you going?” demanded Lindley. “You cannot cross London at night in that guise, with no coat or cloak about you. You’ve woman’s shoes on your feet. You’re mad, boy, and you’ll be held by the first sentry you pass.”
Johan, who had turned away, stopped and came back to Lindley’s side.
“Ay, perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Give me your coat and lend me your sword. I may have need of it, and you’ve but to pass Master Ogilvie’s, and then to reach your own lodging, a safer transit than mine by many odds. ”

“ Lindley urged. “You’re sadly worn and tired now. I saw last night that you were quite spiritless and lacking in heart! To-night, I see it even plainer.”
“Oh, ’tis naught but the work I have to do,” Johan answered, wearily.
“The work?” questioned Lindley. “Is it a new part you have to play?”
“Ay, that’s it,” sighed Johan; “a new part, a man’s part and a woman’s part all in one! It’s a most difficult part, indeed.” He was muttering the words to himself, and, under his cloak, Lindley could see his hands twisting nervously.
“Forgive me, lad!” Lindley’s tone was conscience-stricken. ”

“ The master’s bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton’s visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. ”

“ Ashley agreed, in a grudging voice, “and the cup lags, undoubtedly, but there’ll be no slip; old Gordon will force the lips, and old Gordon holds the handle of the cup. Mistress Barbara is but wax in her father’s hands, and as for Farquhart—well, unless he marries the Lady Barbara, Lord Gordon will ruin him. The old man has sworn that he will have his way, and have it he will, or I’m much mistaken.”
“But,” remonstrated Lindley, “wax can be molded by any hand that holds it. ”

“ Linton was a magistrate, and though he had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this.
He was so obstinate in his resolution that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to compel, from my lips, a recapitulation of what had taken place; standing over me, heaving with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the account in answer to his questions.
It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man that he was not the aggressor; especially with my hardly wrung replies. However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him that he was alive still ”

“ Lindley’s left arm encircled the lad, his right hung limp at his side.
Johan’s head sank for an instant onto Lindley’s shoulder.
“No, he did not touch me, ’tis no bodily hurt,” he moaned; “but I’ve—I’ve killed the man.”
Lindley’s support was withdrawn instantly and roughly.
“After such a fight, are you fool enough to bemoan a victory?” His words, too, were rough. “Why, man, it was a fight to the death! You’d have been killed if you had not killed. Did you think you were fighting for the fun of it? You’re squeamish as a woman.” ”

“ Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side.
A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table, (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done.) Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. ”

“ Newcastle.
“There is no fooling with Life, when it is once turned forty: the seeking of a Fortune then is but a desperate after-game: it is a hundred to one if a man fling three sixes, and recover all; if his hand be no luckier than mine.”—Cowley.
In or about the latter part of the year 1808, John Catnach, with his wife and family, left Alnwick for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, [Pg 34] and commenced business in a small shop in Newgate-street, and among other Works which he printed there, mention may be made of “The Battle of Chevy Chase,” a selection from the works of “Dr. ”