Wuthering Heights

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.