Cateran

“ It is mortifying to learn that this "winsome Gilderoy "—the name, properly Gillie roy, signifying in Gaelic "the red-haired lad"—was in reality one Patrick Mac-Gregor, who was hanged at the cross of Edinburgh, 1638, as a common cateran or free-booter. That the romantic element in the ballad so outweighs the historical, must account for its classification here. Soy, silk. Cess, black-mail. Gear, property.
BONNY BARBARA ALLAN. After the version given in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany and followed by Herd, Ritson, and others. Percy prints with this in the Reliques a longer, but poorer copy. ”

“ Catharine can never be yours. A glove is the emblem of faith, and a man of my craft should therefore less than any other break his own. Catharine's hand is promised — promised to a man whom you may hate, but whom you must honour — to Henry the armourer. ”

“ Caterina, mercy, Caterina; have pity upon me; mercy, mercy, mercy! I am unfortunate. I am leaving with Andrea. I am a miserable creature; you will never see me again. I suffer. I am leaving. I am dying. Have pity!”
“Lucia.”
She read it over again, re-read it, and read it for the fourth time. She sat down by the writing-table, with the letter in her hands. She was stupefied.
“The carriage is at the door,” said Giulietta. Caterina’s head moved as if in reply. Then she rose to her feet, but she felt the floor give way beneath them. “If I move I shall fall,” she thought. ”

“ Prayer, word and example render them powerful in heaven and on earth. They triumph over justice itself and change its most vigorous decrees into treasures of mercy. It was thus that St. Catharine influenced the events of her time.
After having made known Saint Catharine in the verity of her life we hope to cause her to be admired in the beauty of her doctrine, and in the greatness of her action. If God permit, we shall give to the public her spiritual dialogues, which contain the sublimity of her teaching, and her letters which will lead to the comprehension of her extended power. ”

“ Then Catharine, docile to the lessons of Wisdom, would fall on her knees, before her mother, soften her by words full of humility and sweetness, entreating her to calm herself, and promising to repose by her side in accordance with her wishes. She would then lie down on the extreme edge of the bed and there meditate with fervor; and when she found her mother was asleep, she would softly arise and return to her devout exercises. It would not be long; for Satan provoked by her constancy, would awaken Lapa. ”

“ She passed one hand across her brow either to awake herself or to dispel the hallucination.
[Pg 36]
“Listen, Caterina, and try and comprehend me better than I know how to express myself. Do you give your whole attention?”
“Yes,” said the other with an effort.
“You alone know how we have loved each other here. After God, the Madonna Addolorata, and my father, I have loved you, Caterina. You have saved my life, I can never forget it. But for you, I should have gone to burn in hell, where suicides must eternally suffer. I thank you, dear heart. You believe in my gratitude?” ”

“ Let the oil get outside them, would you believe!’
‘San Pietro—that was enough to drive a saint to swear, much sooner a priest; and they say she leads you [180] a life as bad as Caterina does. But what can a man expect when he keeps women in his house that are not tied by the hand of the law?’
‘What can I do?’ objects the priest, laughing, and nothing depressed! ‘One had to choose a profession. Caterina’s a good servant, and Luigina is as good as most women when she doesn’t force me to a clean shirt. ”

“ That this delirious softening of all her senses meant danger, the Lady Catharine could not deny. Yet could aught of earth be wrong when it spelled such happiness, such sweetness—when the sound of a footfall sent her blood going the faster, when the sight of a tall form, the ring of a vibrant tone, caused her limbs to weaken, her throat to choke?
But ah! whence and why this spell, this sorcery—why this sweetness filling all her being, when, after all, duty and seemliness bade it all to end, as end it must, to-day? Thus had the Lady Catharine reflected but the hour before John Law came ”

“ Caterina, they christened me in the church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. The Madonna Addolorata is my patron saint; I shall suffer for ever.”
[Pg 25]
Caterina listened to her with a pained expression on her face.
“You exaggerate; what do you know of life?”
“I know it,” said the other, shaking her head. “I feel as if I had lived enough, suffered enough—I feel as I had grown so old. I feel as if I had found dust and ashes everywhere. I am sick at heart. We are only born to sorrow.”
“That’s Leopardi again, Lucia ”

“ Words in Caterina’s mouth are only the natural vent of her quick and eager nature, when the words are spoken to the old priest. For the most part, they are forgotten as soon as uttered, both by master and servant. The lonely man cannot afford to quarrel with mere froth of words in the woman who devotes her life to his comfort. ”

“ Caterina appeared to have grown bigger, although she still retained a certain girlish delicacy and a pretty minuteness of feature. The look in her grey eyes was more decided, the contour of her cheek was firmer, the chin had assumed a more energetic character. On the low brow, the bright chestnut hair was slightly waved; its thick plaits were gathered up at the nape by a light tortoiseshell comb. She wore a short indoor dress of ivory-white cashmere—a soft thick material that clung closely to her, especially at the waist—a relic of the coquetry of her school-days. ”

“ I want to warn you that Miss Assher has her eyes open on what passes between you and Captain Wybrow, and I feel sure she is getting jealous of you. Pray be very careful, Caterina, and try to behave with politeness and indifference to him. You must see by this time that he is not worth the feeling you have given him. He’s more disturbed at his pulse beating one too many in a minute, than at all the misery he has caused you by his foolish trifling.’
‘You ought not to speak so of him, Maynard,’ said Caterina, passionately. ‘He is not what you think. ”

“ When Catharine, who had consecrated her virginity to God, had attained the age of twelve years, she never left the paternal roof alone, according to the usage established for all unmarried females. Her father, mother and brothers, who were ignorant of her solemn promise, thought of finding her a suitable partner. Her mother who desired for her a husband worthy of her merit, and who knew not that she had already selected a spouse far above all human alliances, took great pains in adorning her interesting daughter ”

“ Powerful as he was, he felt himself unequal to the task. The burgesses of his cities, independent and intractable, were for the most part Cathari. A large portion of his knights and gentlemen were secretly or avowedly protectors of heresy; the common people throughout his dominions despised the clergy and honored the heretics. When a heretic preached they crowded to listen and applaud ; when a Catholic assumed the rare function of religious instruction they jeered at him and asked him what he had to do with proclaiming the Word of God. ”

“ Then he burst out:
“Caterina, why did you behave so ridiculously? It is so unlike you to be eccentric—to make a laughing-stock of yourself?”
She kept her hands in her muff and her eyes cast down, and made no reply.
“You, a sensible little woman? Are we living in the Middle Ages? Perdio, to expose oneself to ridicule!”
Caterina turned pale and bit her lip; she would not cry, and had no voice left to answer with. Lucia leant against the door-post, listening.
“You are talking about the handkerchief, Signor Andrea?” she put in, slowly.
“Just so.... The handkerchief. A pretty conjugal amenity!” ”

“ The impression produced by Caterina on Alberto was the negative one of absence of sex: she was neither beautiful nor ugly in his sight, nor a woman at all. In Caterina the instinct of health which recoils from disease, made him repellent to her. Then came the gloomy hours in which Lucia, in dumb despair, would betake herself to the sofa, where she would lie as rigid as the dead, her feet hidden under her skirts, her train hanging on the ground, with wreathed arms, and hands crossed behind her head, closed eyes and deathly pallor. ”

“ CATHARISTS, OR PATARENES. "Among all the sects of the Middle Ages, very far the most important in numbers and in radical antagonism to the Church, were the Cathari, or the Pure, as with characteristic sectarian assumption they styled themselves. Albigenses they were called in Languedoc; Patarenes in North Italy; Good Men by themselves. Stretching through central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they joined hands with the Paulicians of the East and shared their errors. ”

“ If your French priest had a discerning eye, now, and were sent to this Vicarate, he might keep my El Greco in mind.”
The Bishop shook his head. “No, I can’t promise you—I do not know. I have noticed that he is a man of severe and refined tastes, but he is very reserved. Down there the Indians do not dwell in wigwams, your Eminence,” he added gently.
“No matter, Father. I see your redskins through Fenimore Cooper, and I like them so. Now let us go to the terrace for our coffee and watch the evening come on.” ”

“ A deep sigh escaped Lucia Altimare.
“What ails thee?” queried Caterina Spaccapietra, under her breath.
“I suffer, I suffer,” murmured the other dreamily. “This preacher saddens me. He does not understand, he does not feel, Our Lady.” And the black pupils of her eyes, set in bluish white, dilated as in a vision. Caterina did not reply. The Directress intoned the Rosary in a solemn voice, with a strong Tuscan accent. She read the Mystery alone. Then all the voices in chorus, shrill and low, accompanied her in the Gloria Patri, and in the Pater. ”

“ During forty years S. Catharine governed the convent of Prato with a prudence, a sweetness, and a firmness that made it the perfect type of a religious community. She combated most energetically all abusive exemptions from common life, and showed herself a faithful guardian of holy observances. But if she was the enemy of relaxation of the rule, she also censured severely the proud zeal of those souls whose whole perfection consisted in repeating the prayer of the Pharisee: "O God, I thank you that I am not as the rest of men. I fast twice a week." ”

“ And, when the exhortations are said and the benediction has been given, Caterina is quite a married woman. The neighbours may have their fill of comment and admiration now, and the children their portion of comfits which Caterina scatters among them. Good words and bad words—ejaculations and laughter—fly to and fro, and resound under the trees of the cherry orchard, where they eat the marriage feast. Everybody is contented. Even the girls who have no husbands, and the fathers who have more mouths to feed than money withal to feed them, are glad to-day ”

“ At first she was glowing with her little triumph, and felt the strength of pride; but her eye would steal to the opposite side of the fireplace, where Captain Wybrow had seated himself close to Miss Assher, and was leaning with his arm over the back of the chair, in the most lover-like position. Caterina began to feel a choking sensation. She could see, almost without looking, that he was taking up her arm to examine her bracelet; their heads were bending close together, her curls touching his cheek—now he was putting his lips to her hand. Caterina felt her cheeks burn—she could sit no longer. ”

“ The Bishop sat drinking his coffee slowly out of the tin cup, keeping the pot near the embers. The sun had set now, the yellow rocks were turning grey, down in the pueblo the light of the cook fires made red patches of the glassless windows, and the smell of piñon smoke came softly through the still air. The whole western sky was the colour of golden ashes, with here and there a flush of red on the lip of a little cloud. High above the horizon the evening-star flickered like a lamp just lit, and close beside it was another star of constant light, much smaller. ”

“ Caterina had her look of serene repose, and Alberto continued to twirl his thumbs, like a worthy bourgeois immersed in the delightful consciousness of his own insignificance.
“There is nothing for it but to grin and bear it,” muttered Andrea.
“What are you saying?” asked Caterina, whose ear was always on the alert.
[Pg 192]
“That we shall never get our breakfast. It is nearly half-past eleven. I am fit to die of hunger.” ”

“ In the gloom, Caterina kept turning the pages of the journal, at first without reading, then glancing at a page here and there, grasping an idea, or discovering a fact amid the fantastic divagations in which its pages abounded. At certain parts she shuddered and fell back in her chair. He coughed weakly in his torpor, without unclosing his eyes. Suddenly a violent attack tore his chest, the cough began low, grew louder, died away, seemed to be over, and began again, cruelly, persistently. ”

“ Catharine resumed her pious exercises, and was continually speaking to her parents of her desire to give herself more fully to her divine Spouse. She also solicited the "Sisters of Penance, of St. Dominic," who are denominated Mantelees, to condescend to receive her among them, and allow her to wear their costume. Her mother afflicted at these requests, dared not, however, refuse her, and so as to try to distract her from her austerities she, without precisely knowing it, became the accomplice of Satan, by proposing to go to the Baths and to take Catharine with her. ”