same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn't
reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put
in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.

He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-
treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or
shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath
and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and
nobody was to blame. 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.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and
at Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years
after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an
oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his
parent's affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with
brooding over these injuries. I sympathised a while; but when the
children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take
on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff
was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have
me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal
for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it.
However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse
watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me
to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly:
he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness,