One day they ran off after being punished, and at night Heathcliff returned. 'It was one of their chief amusements,' Ellen recalls, 'to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at' (46). They stayed away from Hindley as much as possible and grew up uncivilized and free. Heathcliff did not mind too much at first because Cathy taught him what she learned, and worked and played with him in the fields. Most importantly, he treated Heathcliff as a servant, stopping his education and making him work in the fields like any farm boy.
Hindley also brought home new manners and rules, and informed the servants that they would have to live in inferior quarters. Hindley returns home, unexpectedly bringing his wife, a flighty woman with a strange fear of death and symptoms of consumption (although Ellen did not at first recognize them as such).
