No More Learning

'

'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen,' she answered, 'it's for him. He
expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he'll be so disappointed:
and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come! '

'Nonsense! ' said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you
have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a hundred
would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two
afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no
further about you. '

'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come? ' she asked,
rising to her feet. 'And just send those books I promised to lend him?
His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely,
when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen? '

'No, indeed! no, indeed! ' replied I with decision. 'Then he would write
to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss Catherine, the
acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see
that it is done. '

'But how can one little note--? ' she recommenced, putting on an imploring
countenance.

'Silence! ' I interrupted. 'We'll not begin with your little notes. Get
into bed. '

She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her
good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great
displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo! there
was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a
pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my
entrance.

'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine,' I said, 'if you write it;
and at present I shall put out your candle. '

I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my
hand and a petulant 'cross thing! ' I then quitted her again, and she
drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter was
finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came from
the village; but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards. Weeks
passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond
of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her
suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently
desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out
beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down early in the
morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the
arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the
library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took
special care to remove when she left it.

One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and
trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of
folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to
take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and
my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my
house keys one that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the
whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure
in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised
to discover that they were a mass of correspondence--daily almost, it
must have been--from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by
her. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however,
they expanded into copious love-letters, foolish, as the age of the
writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought
were borrowed from a more experienced source. Some of them struck me as
singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong
feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy
might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied
Cathy I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After
turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief
and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.

Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the
kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little
boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into
his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the
garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend
his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in
abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did
not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's
affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her
cousin's: very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went
meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert
herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her
morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father
sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in
some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping my eye steadily
fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered
nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more
complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her
single 'Oh! ' and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance.
Mr. Linton looked up.

'What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself? ' he said.

His tone and look assured her _he_ had not been the discoverer of the
hoard.

'No, papa! ' she gasped. 'Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs--I'm sick! '

I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.

'Oh, Ellen! you have got them,' she commenced immediately, dropping on
her knees, when we were enclosed alone. 'Oh, give them to me, and I'll
never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa,
Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do
it any more! '

With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.

'So,' I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems:
you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash you study in
your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough to be printed! And
what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him? I
hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your
ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you must have led the way in writing
such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain. '

'I didn't! I didn't! ' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. 'I didn't
once think of loving him till--'

'_Loving_! ' cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. '_Loving_!
Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the
miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and
both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life!
Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the library; and
we'll see what your father says to such _loving_. '

She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and
then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them--do
anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined
to laugh as scold--for I esteemed it all girlish vanity--I at length
relented in a measure, and asked,--'If I consent to burn them, will you
promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book
(for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings,
nor playthings? '

'We don't send playthings,' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her
shame.

'Nor anything at all, then, my lady? ' I said. 'Unless you will, here I
go. '

'I promise, Ellen! ' she cried, catching my dress. 'Oh, put them in the
fire, do, do! '

But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too
painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her
one or two.

'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake! '

I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an
angle, and the flame curled up the chimney.

'I will have one, you cruel wretch! ' she screamed, darting her hand into
the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the expense
of her fingers.

'Very well--and I will have some to exhibit to papa! ' I answered,
shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door.

She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to
finish the immolation. It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred
them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of
intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my
master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I
judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't dine; but she
reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued
in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of
paper, inscribed, 'Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes
to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them. ' And, henceforth, the
little boy came with vacant pockets.




CHAPTER XXII


Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the
harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared.
Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers;
at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the
evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that
settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the
whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.

Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably
sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her
reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no
longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible,
with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three
hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and
then my society was obviously less desirable than his.

On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November--a fresh watery
afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered
leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds--dark grey
streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain--I
requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of
showers. She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my
umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal
walk which she generally affected if low-spirited--and that she
invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never
known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his
increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly
on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might
well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I
could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek. I
gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the
road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their
roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the
latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer
Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the
branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her
agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to
scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew
there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie
in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs--my
nursery lore--to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and
entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half
thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.

'Look, Miss! ' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one
twisted tree. 'Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up
yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those
turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it
to show to papa? ' Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom
trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length--'No, I'll not
touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen? '

'Yes,' I observed, 'about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are
bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I daresay I
shall keep up with you. '

'No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to
muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus
spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever
and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.

'Catherine, why are you crying, love? ' I asked, approaching and putting
my arm over her shoulder. 'You mustn't cry because papa has a cold; be
thankful it is nothing worse. '

She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by
sobs.

'Oh, it will be something worse,' she said. 'And what shall I do when
papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words,
Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary
the world will be, when papa and you are dead. '

'None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied. 'It's wrong
to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before
any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five. My
mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr.
Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you
have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity
above twenty years beforehand? '

'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up with
timid hope to seek further consolation.

'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied. 'She wasn't
as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do, is
to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you
cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy!
I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless,
and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who
would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that
you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make. '

'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness,' answered my
companion. 'I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll
never--never--oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word
to vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by this:
I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be
miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him better than
myself. '

'Good words,' I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also; and after he is
well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear. '

As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young
lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on
the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed
scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the
highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch
the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to pull
them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed
scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a
fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy
matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes
and black-berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending. I,
like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and
exclaiming--'Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run
round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side! '

'Stay where you are,' I answered; 'I have my bundle of keys in my pocket:
perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go. '

Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I
tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and
found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain
there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching
sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped
also.

'Who is that? ' I whispered.

'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my companion,
anxiously.

'Ho, Miss Linton! ' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet
you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and
obtain. '

'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine. 'Papa says
you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the
same. '

'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. (He it was. ) 'I
don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your
attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months since,
were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh?
You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder;
and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've got your letters, and if you
give me any pertness I'll send them to your father. I presume you grew
weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped
Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest: in love,
really. As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart at
your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually. Though Hareton has made
him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures,
and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily;
and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him! '

'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child? ' I called from the
inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry
falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't
believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible
that a person should die for love of a stranger. '

'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected
villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your
double-dealing,' he added aloud.
'How could _you_ lie so glaringly as to
affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify
her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my
bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not
spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my
place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless
lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father
himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the
same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none
but you can save him! '

The lock gave way and I issued out.

'I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. 'And
grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't
let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this
time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to
her visiting her cousin. '

'Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to
re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of
the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed--'Miss Catherine,
I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and
Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for
kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best
medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and
contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be
persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call. '

I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in
holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for
the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and
warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the
encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined
instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness.
Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded
what she had heard as every syllable true.

The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his
room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and
asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together; and
afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was
weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me
absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it
appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy
it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr.
Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would
coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had
produced: it was just what he intended.

'You may be right, Ellen,' she answered; 'but I shall never feel at ease
till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't
write, and convince him that I shall not change. '

What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We
parted that night--hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to
Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I
couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected
countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton
himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was
founded on fact.




CHAPTER XXIII


The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning--half frost, half
drizzle--and temporary brooks crossed our path--gurgling from the
uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly
the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We
entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr.
Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own
affirmation.

Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire;
a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of
toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine ran
to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My
question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had
grown deaf, and repeated it louder.

'Na--ay! ' he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. 'Na--ay! yah
muh goa back whear yah coom frough. '

'Joseph! ' cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner
room. 'How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now.
Joseph! come this moment. '

Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no
ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one
gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew Linton's
tones, and entered.

'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death! ' said the boy,
mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.

He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.

'Is that you, Miss Linton? ' he said, raising his head from the arm of the
great chair, in which he reclined. 'No--don't kiss me: it takes my
breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued he, after
recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking
very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open;
and those--those _detestable_ creatures won't bring coals to the fire.
It's so cold! '

I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid
complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and
looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.

'Well, Linton,' murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed,
'are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good? '

'Why didn't you come before? ' he asked. 'You should have come, instead
of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I'd far
rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything
else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you' (looking at me) 'step into
the kitchen and see? '

I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run
to and fro at his behest, I replied--'Nobody is out there but Joseph. '

'I want to drink,' he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah is
constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable! And
I'm obliged to come down here--they resolved never to hear me up-stairs. '

'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff? ' I asked, perceiving
Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.

'Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,' he cried.
'The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at
me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings. '

Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the
dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of
wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion,
appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.

'And are you glad to see me? ' asked she, reiterating her former question
and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.

'Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours! ' he replied.
'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And papa swore it was
owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said
you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the
master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you don't
despise me, do you, Miss--? '

'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young lady.
'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than
anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come
when he returns: will he stay away many days? '

'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors frequently,
since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two
with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be
peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help
me, wouldn't you? '

'Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could only get
papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish
you were my brother. '

'And then you would like me as well as your father? ' observed he, more
cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the
world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that. '

'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely.
'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and
brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa
would be as fond of you as he is of me. '

Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they
did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt.
I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till
everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted
her relation was false.

'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly.

'_My_ papa scorns yours! ' cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking fool. '

'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very naughty to
dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt
Isabella leave him as she did. '

'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me. '

'She did,' cried my young lady.

'Well, I'll tell you something! ' said Linton. 'Your mother hated your
father: now then. '

'Oh! ' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

'And she loved mine,' added he.

'You little liar! I hate you now! ' she panted, and her face grew red
with passion.

'She did! she did! ' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair,
and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant,
who stood behind.

'Hush, Master Heathcliff! ' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too, I
suppose. '

'It isn't: you hold your tongue! ' he answered. 'She did, she did,
Catherine! she did, she did! '

Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to
fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough
that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even
me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the
mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit
exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down
silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite,
and looked solemnly into the fire.

'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff? ' I inquired, after waiting ten
minutes.

'I wish _she_ felt as I do,' he replied: 'spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton
never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was better
to-day: and there--' his voice died in a whimper.

'_I_ didn't strike you! ' muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.

He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a
quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for
whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos
into the inflexions of his voice.

'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton,' she said at length, racked beyond
endurance. 'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had
no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you, Linton? Don't
let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! speak to me. '

'I can't speak to you,' he murmured; 'you've hurt me so that I shall lie
awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd know what
it was; but _you'll_ be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody
near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights! ' And
he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.

'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,' I said, 'it
won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she never come.
However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get quieter
when we leave you. '

'Must I go? ' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. 'Do you want
me to go, Linton? '

'You can't alter what you've done,' he replied pettishly, shrinking from
her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever. '

'Well, then, I must go? ' she repeated.

'Let me alone, at least,' said he; 'I can't bear your talking. '

She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while;
but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the
door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid
from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere
perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as
grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition
from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt
humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down,
and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of
breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.

'I shall lift him on to the settle,' I said, 'and he may roll about as he
pleases: we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss
Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition
of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. 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.