Now, then, there he is!
Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still.’
She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood.
She tried to put it more comfortably.
‘I can't do with that,’ he said; ‘it's not high enough.’
Catherine brought another to lay above it.
‘That's too high,’ murmured the provoking thing.
‘How must I arrange it, then?’ she asked despairingly.
He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support.
‘No, that won't do,’ I said. ‘You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff.
Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot remain five minutes longer.’
‘Yes, yes, we can!’ replied Cathy. ‘He's good and patient now.
He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come again.
Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn't come, if I have hurt you.’
‘You must come, to cure me,’ he answered. ‘You ought to come, because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely!
I was not as ill when you entered as I am at present—was I?’
‘But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.—I didn't do it all,’ said his cousin. ‘However, we'll be friends now.
And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?’
‘I told you I did,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee.
That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together.
Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad—one of those you promised to teach me; or a story.
I'd rather have a ballad, though: begin.’
Catherine repeated the longest she could remember.
The employment pleased both mightily.
Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner.
‘And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?’ asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.
‘No,’ I answered, ‘nor next day neither.’
She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear.
‘You won't go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!’ I commenced, when we were out of the house. ‘You are not dreaming of it, are you?’
She smiled.
‘Oh, I'll take good care,’ I continued: ‘I'll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else.’
‘I can get over the wall,’ she said laughing. ‘The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler.
And besides, I'm almost seventeen: I'm a woman.
And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him.
I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not?
And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing.
He's a pretty little darling when he's good.
I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine.
We should, never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other?
Don't you like him, Ellen?’
‘Like him!’ I exclaimed. ‘The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens.
Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty.
I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed.
And small loss to his family whenever he drops off.
And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be.
I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.’
My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech.
To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.
‘He's younger than I,’ she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, ‘and he ought to live the longest: he will—he must live as long as I do.
He's as strong now as when he first came into the north; I'm positive of that.