Word Watch 13, "wuther"

I often wonder if we readers read further into a text than what the author ever intended. I know, as an English major, that this is true, but to what extent? In doing my research for my thesis, I came across an article by Steven Vine entitled "The Wuther of the Other in Wuthering Heights." Vine looked into the definition of wuther:
       "According to the OED a 'wuther' (a variant of Scots and dialect English 'whither') can mean 'an
       attack, onset; a smart blow or stroke' (the house, in this sense, is constantly under attack from the
       outside); but it can also mean 'to tremble, shake, quiver,' so that 'wuthering' names 'a quivering
       movement' or 'a tremble' that convulses from within rather than attacks from without" (340).
Vine views Heathcliff, as the other in the novel, as the source of the Heights' wuthering from the inside and the outside. Heathcliff, Vine argues, is both a part of the Earnshaw family and excluded from the Earnshaw family, and so he attacks from within the family and from without.

The argument of Heathcliff as the wuthering force in Wuthering Heights is completely legitimate. And yet, I wonder if Emily Bronte intended it to be thus. Would Wuthering Heights wuther without the force of Heathcliff, or is Heathcliff the sole reason for the onslaught of wuthering? These are among the questions I like to ask as an English major. I wish I could ask her; then again, no matter how she'd answer, the debate would either be squashed or fueled, and I like the speculation.