5 Wuthering Heights Read And Abridged By Stephanie Poppins

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

Emily Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1818 and along with her brother and sisters Anne and Charlotte wrote from childhood onwards.

Wuthering Heights is the story she is best remembered for.

But before we begin let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

That's it.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 5 In the course of time Mr Earnshaw began to fail,

Continued Mrs Dean per tale of Heathcliff's childhood.

He'd been active and healthy yet his strength left him suddenly and when he was confined to the chimney corner he grew grievously irritable.

Nothing and everything vexed him and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits.

This was especially to be remarked if anyone attempted to impose upon or domineer over his favourite.

He was painfully jealous lest the world should be spoken amiss to him,

Seeming to have got into his head the notion that because he liked Heathcliff all hated and longed to do an ill turn.

It was a disadvantage to the lad for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master so we humoured his partiality.

But humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers.

Still it became in a manner necessary twice or thrice.

Hindley's manifestation of scorn while his father was near roused the old man to a fury.

He seized his stick to strike him and shook with rage that he couldn't do it.

At last our curate advised the young man should be sent to college.

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 dare say up yonder.

He was and is most likely the wearisome self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a bible to break the promises of himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.

His knack of sermonising and pious discoursing he contrived to make a great impression on Mr Earnshaw and the more feeble the master became the more influence he gained.

He was relentless in his worrying him about his soul's concerns and about ruling his children rigidly.

Couraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate.

Night after night he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine always minding to flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the last.

Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before and she put all of us past our patience 50 times in offering a day from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed.

We had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be a mischief.

Her spirits were always at high watermark,

Her tongue was always going,

Singing,

Laughing,

Plaguing everybody who wouldn't do the same.

A wild wicked slip she was but she had the bonniest eye and the sweetest smile and lightest foot in the parish and after all I believe she meant no harm.

But when once she made you cry in good earnest it seldom happened she would not keep you company and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her.

She was much too fond of Heathcliff.

The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him yet she got chided more than any of us on his account.

In play she liked exceedingly to act out the little mysteries using her hands freely and commanding her companions.

She did so to me but I would not bear slapping an Audrey in and so I let her know.

Now Mr Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children.

He'd always been strict and grave with them and Catherine on her part had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime.

His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him.

She was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once and she defying us with her bold saucy look and ready words turned Joseph's religious curses into ridicule.

She baited me and doing just what her father hated most she showed how her pretended insolence which he thought was real had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness.

How the boy would do her bidding in anything and his only when it suited his own inclination.

After behaving as badly as possible all day sometimes she would come fondly enough to him to make it up at night.

Nay Cathy,

Mr Earnshaw would say,

I cannot love thee thou'st worse than thy brother.

Go say thy prayers child and ask God's pardon.

Doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever read thee.

That made her cry at first and then being repulsed it continually hardened her and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults and begged to be forgiven.

But at last the hour came that ended Mr Earnshaw's troubles on earth.

He died quietly in his chair one October evening seated by the fireside.

A high wind blustered around the house and roared in the chimney.

It sounded wild and stormy yet it wasn't cold and we were all together.

I a little removed from the half busy at my knitting and Joseph reading his Bible near the table but 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.

I remember the master before he fell into a doze stroking her bonny hair.

It pleased him rarely to see her gentle and saying why can't thou not always be a good lass Cathy?

And she turned her face up to his and laughed and answered why cannot you always be a good man father?

But as soon as she saw him vexed again she kissed his hand and said she'd sing him to sleep.

She began singing very low his fingers dropped from hers and his head sank on his breast.

Then I told her to hush and not stir for fear she'd wake him.

We all kept as mute as mice a full half hour and should have done longer.

Only Joseph having finished his chapter got up and said he must rouse the master for prayers and bed.

He stepped forward and called him by his name and touched his shoulder but he would not move so he took the candle and looked at him.

I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light and seizing the children each up by an arm he whispered them to frame upstairs and make little din that they might pray alone that evening he had some it to do.

I shall bid father good night first said Catherine putting her arms around his neck.

The poor thing discovered her lost directly and she screamed out oh he's dead Heathcliff is dead and they both set up a heartbreaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs loud and bitter but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to rolling that way over a saint in heaven.

He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson.

I couldn't guess the use that either of them would be then.

However I went back through wind and rain and brought one the doctor with me.

The other said he'd come in the morning leaving Joseph to explain matters then I ran to the children's room.

The door was ajar I saw they'd never even lain down though it was past midnight but they were calmer and they didn't need me to console them.

The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on.

No parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did in their innocent talk and while I sobbed and listened I couldn't help wishing we were all there safe together.

Mr Hindley came home to the funeral.

Much to our surprise he brought a wife with him.

What she was and where she was born he never informed us.

Probably she had neither money nor name to recommend her or he'd scarce have kept the union from his father.

She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account.

Every object she saw appeared to delight her.

I thought she was half silly from her behaviour.

She ran into her chamber and made me come with her.

I should have been dressing the children.

Then she sat shivering and clasping her hands.

Are they gone yet?

She said.

Then she began describing the effect it produced on her to see black.

How strange she was so afraid of dying.

I imagined her as little likely to die as myself.

She was rather thin but young and fresh complexioned and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds.

I did remark that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick and the least sudden noise set her in a quiver.

Sometimes she coughed troublesomely but I knew nothing of what these symptoms were and I had no impulse to sympathise with her.

We don't in general take to Florence here Mr Lockwood unless they take to us first.

Younger and sure had been altered considerably in the three years of his absence.

He'd grown sparer and lost his colour.

He spoke and dressed quite differently and on the day of his return he told Joseph and me we must henceforth quarter ourselves in the back kitchen and leave the house for him.

Indeed he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour but his new wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and the large fireplace,

A pew to dishes and dog kennel and the wide space there was to move about where they usually sat.

She expressed pleasure too at finding a sister among her new acquaintance and she prattled to Catherine and kissed her and ran about with her and gave her quantities of presents in the beginning but her affection died very soon.

Then when she grew peevish Hindley became too radical.

A few words from her convincing a dislike to Heathcliff were enough to rouse him in all his old hatred of the boy drove him from their company to their curates and insisted he should labour out of doors instead compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm.

Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first because Cathy taught him what she learned and worked or played with him in the fields but they promised to grow up as rude as savages.

The young master was now entirely negligent as to how they behaved and what they did so Heathcliff and Cathy kept clear of him would not even have seen after they're going to church on Sundays only Joseph and the curate recommended their clearnessness when they absented themselves and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper but the curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached no matter what happened both Heathcliff and Cathy soon forgot everything the minute they were back together again.