I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us.
This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre.
I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establishing peace.
Mr.Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping.

Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.
'What the devil is the matter ?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.
'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered.

'The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir.

You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!' 'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,' he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table.

'The dogs do right to be vigilant.