about him!”
The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered:
“I’d rayther he’d goan hisseln for t’ doctor! I sud ha’ taen tent o’ t’ maister better nor him—and he warn’t deead when I left, naught o’ t’ soart!”
I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way there too: only, he desired me to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket.
He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow: if anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect: it was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house.
He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, “Now, my bonny lad, you are mine ! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!”
The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this speech: he played with Heathcliff’s whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, “That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in the world less yours than he is!”