“You! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night,” I cried. “I want you to tell me my way, not to show it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.”
“Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?”
“Are there no boys at the farm?”
“No; those are all.”
“Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.”
“That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it.”
“I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,” cried Heathcliff’s stern voice from the kitchen entrance. “As to staying here, I don’t keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.”
“I can sleep on a chair in this room,” I replied.
“No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!” said the unmannerly wretch.
With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend me.