Summary Chp. 4

From walking during a chilly weather the other day, Lockwood feels a little sick. Mrs. Dean, a servant since eighteen years earlier, comes to serve him supper. Thinking about the Wuthering Heights dwellers� strange behaviors, Lockwood lures her into telling him what she knows about them.

Mrs. Dean says that she knows the Earnshaws well because her mother was also a servant to them. The two Earnshaw children she used to serve were Hindley and Cathy�short for Catherine. One day when Hindley was eighteen and Cathy six, Mr. Earnshaw went on a journey to the city. But upon his return, instead of bringing home a fiddle and a horsewhip as promised, he had with him a dirty gipsy child whom everyone instantly hated.

The child was named Heathcliff and only that. Within a few days, he had made friends with Cathy. Old Mr. Earnshaw for some reason liked him very much and showed it, which, needless to say, didn�t help improve the relationship between the real son and the adopted one. Heathcliff never fought back when Hindley beat him up, though, which earned him young Mrs. Dean�s sympathy.

However, seldom complaining as he was, Heathcliff was no angel. He was selfish and cunning. He knew he had Mr. Earnshaw�s favor and took advantage of it. Unless Hindley gave him what he wanted, he would show Mr. Earnshaw the bruises from the beating.