'I saw her at morn,' he replied: 'she would have me to cut her a
hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge
yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight.'
You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me
directly she must have started for Penistone Crags. 'What will
become of her?' I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man
was repairing, and making straight to the high-road. I walked as
if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of
the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect, far or near. The
Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place,
and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would
fall ere I could reach them. 'And what if she should have slipped
in clambering among them,' I reflected, 'and been killed, or broken
some of her bones?' My suspense was truly painful; and, at first,
it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the
farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a
window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket
and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman
whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered: she
had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw.
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