Saturday, 7 April 2012

To Avoid Being Heathcliff.

The Lady Bella’s family will be entertaining on a grand scale for the next few days, apparently, so I think the nightly walks along Mill Lane will have to be suspended until Tuesday. I know what I’m like, you see. Being made aware of the fact that large numbers of invited guests are enjoying M’Lady’s company will only cause me to feel excluded. And then I’ll get ratty, and maybe even vengeful. Like Heathcliff.

Remember the episode in Wuthering Heights, in which the young Cathy and Heathcliff peer through the windows of Thrushcross Grange, the big house owned by the Lintons? They get attacked by the dogs; and then Cathy, being the daughter of an independent farmer, gets taken in and cared for, whilst Heathcliff, being an orphan and probably of gypsy stock, is excluded. Heathcliff gets ratty – and it lays the foundation of his later acts of revenge upon the Linton family. I think I might manage ratty without the vengeance, but it would be something along those lines.

So for the next three nights I will be taking a darker and more lonesome route. And maybe there will be revelations to be had.

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