“Suppose we keep running?” I said. “Suppose we don’t go back at all?”

Heathcliff laughed. “How will we live?” he asked.

I shrugged. “As birds do.”

Heathcliff’s face became pinched and he seemed to fall into some dark, desolate place where I could not reach him. He was silent for a long time and then he said, “I could not stand to see you go hungry, Cathy.”

I opened my mouth to say I’d survive – I was always being sent to bed without my supper. But the words dried on my lips when I looked at him. The hunger Heathcliff was talking about went deeper than one withheld meal.

Darkness had gathered itself around us like a cape. Down in the valley we saw a light from Thrushcross Grange. We’d never set foot over the threshold, but we both knew it was where the Lintons lived – we never spoke but saw them in church every week. Mr Linton was a magistrate, an upstanding citizen. His wife was a pillar of the church. They were a respectable family: two God fearing parents and two polite, well behaved children. Their son, Edgar, was perhaps two years older than Heathcliff. Their daughter, Isabella, was a year younger than me. I’d never had any interest in them whatsoever.

But now I was overcome with curiosity. I knew nothing of the world beyond Wuthering Heights. How did other people get by? How did they live? What did they do of an evening?

Heathcliff read my thoughts.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

We had to push past a hedge and grope our way across a vast garden before we got to the house. The light flooded out from the drawing room because the curtains were only half closed. We peered in and oh! What a sight met our eyes.

Wuthering Heights was a farmhouse, with walls built thick to keep out the howling wind and blizzards that came off the moor, its ceilings low and windows narrow. Thrushcross Grange was like something out of a fairy tale. Everything was crimson and white and gold, including the two yellow haired, red faced children. They were at opposite corners of the room bawling their eyes out. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. Edgar and Isabella had clearly argued about the small dog that was holding up its paw and whimpering in pain in the middle of the room. I guessed they’d fought over who should hold it, and now the poor thing was injured. They were too wrapped up in themselves to tend to it.

Edgar and Isabella were so childish, so downright silly, that Heathcliff and I started to laugh. We couldn’t help ourselves. And they heard and they were so terrified that both of them nearly soiled themselves in panic. That made us laugh even more. Then Heathcliff gave a ghostly wail and I scratched my nails down the window pane to frighten the daft things out of their wits.