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.
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.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Happy listening.
Final Chapter The following evening was very wet.
Indeed it poured down till day dawn.
And as I took my morning walk around the house I observed the master's window swinging open and the rain driving in.
He can't be in bed,
I thought.
Those showers are drenching him through.
He must either be up or out.
But I'll make no more ado,
I'll go boldly in and have a look.
Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key,
I ran to unclose the panels,
For the chamber was vacant.
Quickly pushing them aside I peeked in.
Mr Heathcliff was there,
Laid on his back.
His eyes met mine so keen and fierce I started and then he seemed to smile.
I could not think him dead,
But his face and throat were washed with rain.
The bedclothes dripped and he was perfectly still.
The latties flapping to and fro,
That the grey's one hand still rested on the sill.
But no blood trickled from the broken skin and when I put my fingers to it,
I could doubt no more.
He was dead and stark.
I combed back his long hair from his forehead.
I tried to close his eyes,
To extinguish if possible that frightful lifelike gaze of exultation before anyone else beheld it.
But they would not shut.
They seemed to sneer at my attempts,
And his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too.
Taken with another fit of cowardice,
I cried out for Joseph.
He shuffled up and made a noise,
But resolutely refused to meddle with him.
The devil's harried off his soul,
He cried.
I thought he intended to cut a caper around the bed,
But suddenly composed on himself.
Joseph fell upon his knees and raised his hands,
And returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights.
I felt stunned by the awful event,
And my memory unavoidably recurred to former times,
With a sort of oppressive sadness.
Poor Hayton,
The most wronged,
Was the only one who really suffered any much.
He sat by the corpse all night,
Weeping in bitter earnest.
He pressed its hand and kissed the sarcastic,
Savage face that everyone else shrank from.
Mr.
Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died.
I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days,
Fearing it might lead to trouble,
And then I'm persuaded he did not abstain on purpose.
It was the consequence of a strange illness,
Not the cause.
We buried him to the scandal of the old neighbourhood as he wished.
Earnshaw and I,
The sexton and six men to carry the coffin,
Comprehended the whole attendance.
The six men departed when they let it down into the grave,
But we stayed to see it covered.
Hayton,
With a streaming face,
Dug green sods and laid them over the brown mould himself.
At present,
It's as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds,
And I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly.
But the country folks,
If you ask them,
Would swear on the Bible that Heathcliff still walks.
There are those who speak to him having met behind the church and on the moor,
And even within this house.
Idle tales,
You'll say,
And so say I.
Yet that old man by the kitchen swears he's seen two on him,
Looking out of his chamber windows on every rainy night since his death.
And an odd thing happened to me about a month ago,
Too.
I was going to the Grange one evening.
It was a dark evening,
Threatening thunder,
And just as the turn of the heights,
I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs.
He was crying terribly.
I suppose the lambs were skittish and he would not be guided.
What is the matter,
My little man?
I asked.
There's Heathcliff,
And a woman yonder under the nap.
He blubbered.
I saw nothing,
But neither the sheep nor he would go on,
So I bid him take the road lower down.
He probably raised the phantom from thinking,
As he traversed the moors alone,
On the nonsense he'd heard his parents and companions repeat.
Yet still,
I don't like being out in the dark now,
And I don't like being left by myself in this grim house.
I can't help it.
I shall be glad when they leave it and shift to the Grange.
They're going to the Grange,
Then?
I asked.
Yeah,
Said Nellie.
As soon as they're married,
And that'll be on New Year's Day.
And who will live here,
Then?
Oh,
Joseph will take care of the house,
And perhaps a lad to keep him company.
They'll live in the kitchen and the rest will be shut up.
For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it,
I observed.
No,
Mr Lockwood.
I believe the dead are at peace,
But it's not right to speak of them with levity.
At that moment,
The garden gate swung to.
The ramblers were returning.
They are afraid of nothing,
I grumbled.
Together they would brave Satan and all his legions.
As they stepped onto the doorstones and halted to take a last look at the moon,
Or,
More correctly,
At each other by her light,
I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again.
And pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs Dean,
I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house door.
And so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow servants' gay indiscretions,
Had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk.
When beneath its walls,
I perceived decay had made progress,
Even in seven months.
Many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass and slates jutted off here and there beyond the right line of the roof to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.
I sought and soon discovered the three headstones on the slope next to the moor.
The middle one was grey and half buried in the heath.
Edgar Linton's was only harmonised by the turf and the moss creeping up its foot.
Heathcliffs were still bare.
I lingered around them under that benign sky.
I watched the moths fluttering among the heath and the hare bells.
I listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass.
And I wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers of the night.
