Catherine_ A Story(凯瑟琳的故事)

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Catherine: A Story

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Catherine: A Story

Contents

1. Introducing to the reader the chief personages of this narrative.

2. In which are depicted the pleasures of a sentimental attachment.

3. In which a narcotic is administered, and a great deal of genteel

society depicted.

4. In which Mrs. Catherine becomes an honest woman again.

5. Contains Mr. Brock's autobiography, and other matter.

6. The adventures of the ambassador, Mr. MacShane.

7. Which embraces a period of seven years.

8. Enumerates the accomplishments of Master Thomas Billings--

introduces Brock as Doctor Wood--and announces the execution of Ensign

MacShane.

9. Interview between Count Galgenstein and Master Thomas Billings,

when he informs the Count of his parentage.

10. Showing how Galgenstein and Mrs. Cat recognise each other in

Marylebone Gardens--and how the Count drives her home in his carrige.

11. Of some domestic quarrels, and the consequence thereof.

12. Treats of love, and prepares for death.

13. Being a preparation for the end.

Chapter the Last.

Another Last Chapter.

Catherine: A Story

The story of "Catherine," which appeared in Fraser's Magazine in

1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons,

Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that

day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false

sympathy for the vicious and criminal.

With this purpose, the author chose for the subject of his story a

woman named Catherine Hayes, who was burned at Tyburn, in 1726, for

the deliberate murder of her husband, under very revolting circumstances.

Mr. Thackeray's aim obviously was to describe the career of this wretched

woman and her associates with such fidelity to truth as to exhibit the

danger and folly of investing such persons with heroic and romantic

qualities.

Catherine: A Story

CHAPTER I. Introducing to the

reader the chief personages of this

narrative.

At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after a

deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising, restoring, re-

restoring, play-writing, sermon- writing, Oliver-Cromwellising,

Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk into its grave, giving

place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr. Isaac Newton was a tutor of Trinity,

and Mr. Joseph Addison Commissioner of Appeals; when the presiding

genius that watched over the destinies of the French nation had played out

all the best cards in his hand, and his adversaries began to pour in their

trumps; when there were two kings in Spain employed perpetually in

running away from one another; when there was a queen in England, with

such rogues for Ministers as have never been seen, no, not in our own day;

and a General, of whom it may be severely argued, whether he was the

meanest miser or the greatest hero in the world; when Mrs. Masham had

not yet put Madam Marlborough's nose out of joint; when people had their

ears cut off for writing very meek political pamphlets; and very large full-

bottomed wigs were just beginning to be worn with powder; and the face

of Louis the Great, as his was handed in to him behind the bed-curtains,

was, when issuing thence, observed to look longer, older, and more dismal

daily. . . .

About the year One thousand seven hundred and five, that is, in the

glorious reign of Queen Anne, there existed certain characters, and befell a

series of adventures, which, since they are strictly in accordance with the

present fashionable style and taste; since they have been already partly

described in the "Newgate Calendar;" since they are (as shall be seen anon)

agreeably low, delightfully disgusting, and at the same time eminently

pleasing and pathetic, may properly be set down here.

And though it may be said, with some considerable show of reason,

Catherine: A Story

that agreeably low and delightfully disgusting characters have already

been treated, both copiously and ably, by some eminent writers of the

present (and, indeed, of future) ages; though to tread in the footsteps of the

immortal FAGIN requires a genius of inordinate stride, and to go a-

robbing after the late though deathless TURPIN, the renowned JACK

SHEPPARD, or the embryo DUVAL, may be impossible, and not an

infringement, but a wasteful indication of ill-will towards the eighth

commandment; though it may, on the one hand, be asserted that only vain

coxcombs would dare to write on subjects already described by men really

and deservedly eminent; on the other hand, that these subjects have been

described so fully, that nothing more can be said about them; on the third

hand (allowing, for the sake of argument, three hands to one figure of

speech), that the public has heard so much of them, as to be quite tired of

rogues, thieves, cutthroats, and Newgate altogether;--though all these

objections may be urged, and each is excellent, yet we intend to take a few

more pages from the "Old Bailey Calendar," to bless the public with one

more draught from the Stone Jug:*--yet awhile to listen, hurdle-mounted,

and riding down the Oxford Road, to the bland conversation of Jack Ketch,

and to hang with him round the neck of his patient, at the end of our and

his history. We give the reader fair notice, that we shall tickle him with a

few such scenes of villainy, throat-cutting, and bodily suffering in general,

as are not to be found, no, not in--; never mind comparisons, for such are

odious.

* This, as your Ladyship is aware, is the polite name for Her Majesty's

Prison of Newgate.

In the year 1705, then, whether it was that the Queen of England did

feel seriously alarmed at the notion that a French prince should occupy the

Spanish throne; or whether she was tenderly attached to the Emperor of

Germany; or whether she was obliged to fight out the quarrel of William

of Orange, who made us pay and fight for his Dutch provinces; or whether

poor old Louis Quatorze did really frighten her; or whether Sarah Jennings

and her husband wanted to make a fight, knowing how much they should

gain by it;--whatever the reason was, it was evident that the war was to

continue, and there was almost as much soldiering and recruiting, parading,

Catherine: A Story

pike and gun-exercising, flag-flying, drum-beating, powder-blazing, and

military enthusiasm, as we can all remember in the year 1801, what time

the Corsican upstart menaced our shores. A recruiting-party and captain of

Cutts's regiment (which had been so mangled at Blenheim the year before)

were now in Warwickshire; and having their depot at Warwick, the captain

and his attendant, the corporal, were used to travel through the country,

seeking for heroes to fill up the gaps in Cutts's corps,--and for adventures

to pass away the weary time of a country life.

Our Captain Plume and Sergeant Kite (it was at this time, by the way,

that those famous recruiting-officers were playing their pranks in

Shrewsbury) were occupied very much in the same manner with

Farquhar's heroes. They roamed from Warwick to Stratford, and from

Stratford to Birmingham, persuading the swains of Warwickshire to leave

the plough for the Pike, and despatching, from time to time, small

detachments of recruits to extend Marlborough's lines, and to act as food

for the hungry cannon at Ramillies and Malplaquet.

Of those two gentlemen who are about to act a very important part in

our history, one only was probably a native of Britain,--we say probably,

because the individual in question was himself quite uncertain, and, it

must be added, entirely indifferent about his birthplace; but speaking the

English language, and having been during the course of his life pretty

generally engaged in the British service, he had a tolerably fair claim to

the majestic title of Briton. His name was Peter Brock, otherwise Corporal

Brock, of Lord Cutts's regiment of dragoons; he was of age about fifty-

seven (even that point has never been ascertained); in height about five

feet six inches; in weight, nearly thirteen stone; with a chest that the

celebrated Leitch himself might envy; an arm that was like an opera-

dancer's leg; a stomach so elastic that it would accommodate itself to any

given or stolen quantity of food; a great aptitude for strong liquors; a

considerable skill in singing chansons de table of not the most delicate

kind; he was a lover of jokes, of which he made many, and passably bad;

when pleased, simply coarse, boisterous, and jovial; when angry, a perfect

demon: bullying, cursing, storming, fighting, as is sometimes the wont

with gentlemen of his cloth and education.

Catherine: A Story

Mr. Brock was strictly, what the Marquis of Rodil styled himself in a

proclamation to his soldiers after running away, a hijo de la guerra--a child

of war. Not seven cities, but one or two regiments, might contend for the

honour of giving him birth; for his mother, whose name he took, had acted

as camp-follower to a Royalist regiment; had then obeyed the

Parliamentarians; died in Scotland when Monk was commanding in that

country; and the first appearance of Mr. Brock in a public capacity

displayed him as a fifer in the General's own regiment of Coldstreamers,

when they marched from Scotland to London, and from a republic at once

into a monarchy. Since that period, Brock had been always with the army,

he had had, too, some promotion, for he spake of having a command at the

battle of the Boyne; though probably (as he never mentioned the fact)

upon the losing side. The very year before this narrative commences, he

had been one of Mordaunt's forlorn hope at Schellenberg, for which

service he was promised a pair of colours; he lost them, however, and was

almost shot (but fate did not ordain that his career should close in that way)

for drunkenness and insubordination immediately after the battle; but

having in some measure reinstated himself by a display of much gallantry

at Blenheim, it was found advisable to send him to England for the

purposes of recruiting, and remove him altogether from the regiment

where his gallantry only rendered the example of his riot more dangerous.

Mr. Brock's commander was a slim young gentleman of twenty-six,

about whom there was likewise a history, if one would take the trouble to

inquire. He was a Bavarian by birth (his mother being an English lady),

and enjoyed along with a dozen other brothers the title of count: eleven of

these, of course, were penniless; one or two were priests, one a monk, six

or seven in various military services, and the elder at home at Schloss

Galgenstein breeding horses, hunting wild boars, swindling tenants, living

in a great house with small means; obliged to be sordid at home all the

year, to be splendid for a month at the capital, as is the way with many

other noblemen. Our young count, Count Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian

von Galgenstein, had been in the service of the French as page to a

nobleman; then of His Majesty's gardes du corps; then a lieutenant and

captain in the Bavarian service; and when, after the battle of Blenheim,

Catherine: A Story

two regiments of Germans came over to the winning side, Gustavus

Adolphus Maximilian found himself among them; and at the epoch when

this story commences, had enjoyed English pay for a year or more. It is

unnecessary to say how he exchanged into his present regiment; how it

appeared that, before her marriage, handsome John Churchill had known

the young gentleman's mother, when they were both penniless hangers-on

at Charles the Second's court;--it is, we say, quite useless to repeat all the

scandal of which we are perfectly masters, and to trace step by step the

events of his history. Here, however, was Gustavus Adolphus, in a small

inn, in a small village of Warwickshire, on an autumn evening in the year

1705; and at the very moment when this history begins, he and Mr. Brock,

his corporal and friend, were seated at a round table before the kitchen-fire

while a small groom of the establishment was leading up and down on the

village green, before the inn door, two black, glossy, long-tailed, barrel-

bellied, thick-flanked, arch-necked, Roman-nosed Flanders horses, which

were the property of the two gentlemen now taking their ease at the

"Bugle Inn." The two gentlemen were seated at their ease at the inn table,

drinking mountain-wine; and if the reader fancies from the sketch which

we have given of their lives, or from his own blindness and belief in the

perfectibility of human nature, that the sun of that autumn evening shone

upon any two men in county or city, at desk or harvest, at Court or at

Newgate, drunk or sober, who were greater rascals than Count Gustavus

Galgenstein and Corporal Peter Brock, he is egregiously mistaken, and his

knowledge of human nature is not worth a fig. If they had not been two

prominent scoundrels, what earthly business should we have in detailing

their histories? What would the public care for them? Who would meddle

with dull virtue, humdrum sentiment, or stupid innocence, when vice,

agreeable vice, is the only thing which the readers of romances care to

hear?

The little horse-boy, who was leading the two black Flanders horses up

and down the green, might have put them in the stable for any good that

the horses got by the gentle exercise which they were now taking in the

cool evening air, as their owners had not ridden very far or very hard, and

there was not a hair turned of their sleek shining coats; but the lad had

Catherine: A Story

been especially ordered so to walk the horses about until he received

further commands from the gentlemen reposing in the "Bugle" kitchen;

and the idlers of the village seemed so pleased with the beasts, and their

smart saddles and shining bridles, that it would have been a pity to deprive

them of the pleasure of contemplating such an innocent spectacle. Over

the Count's horse was thrown a fine red cloth, richly embroidered in

yellow worsted, a very large count's coronet and a cipher at the four

corners of the covering; and under this might be seen a pair of gorgeous

silver stirrups, and above it, a couple of silver-mounted pistols reposing in

bearskin holsters; the bit was silver too, and the horse's head was

decorated with many smart ribbons. Of the Corporal's steed, suffice it to

say, that the ornaments were in brass, as bright, though not perhaps so

valuable, as those which decorated the Captain's animal. The boys, who

had been at play on the green, first paused and entered into conversation

with the horse-boy; then the village matrons followed; and afterwards,

sauntering by ones and twos, came the village maidens, who love soldiers

as flies love treacle; presently the males began to arrive, and lo! the parson

of the parish, taking his evening walk with Mrs. Dobbs, and the four

children his offspring, at length joined himself to his flock.

To this audience the little ostler explained that the animals belonged to

two gentlemen now reposing at the "Bugle:" one young with gold hair, the

other old with grizzled locks; both in red coats; both in jack-boots; putting

the house into a bustle, and calling for the best. He then discoursed to

some of his own companions regarding the merits of the horses; and the

parson, a learned man, explained to the villagers, that one of the travellers

must be a count, or at least had a count's horsecloth; pronounced that the

stirrups were of real silver, and checked the impetuosity of his son,

William Nassau Dobbs, who was for mounting the animals, and who

expressed a longing to fire off one of the pistols in the holsters.

As this family discussion was taking place, the gentlemen whose

appearance had created so much attention came to the door of the inn, and

the elder and stouter was seen to smile at his companion; after which he

strolled leisurely over the green, and seemed to examine with much

benevolent satisfaction the assemblage of villagers who were staring at

Catherine: A Story

him and the quadrupeds.

Mr. Brock, when he saw the parson's band and cassock, took off his

beaver reverently, and saluted the divine: "I hope your reverence won't

baulk the little fellow," said he; "I think I heard him calling out for a ride,

and whether he should like my horse, or his Lordship's horse, I am sure it

is all one. Don't be afraid, sir! the horses are not tired; we have only come

seventy mile to-day, and Prince Eugene once rode a matter of fifty-two

leagues (a hundred and fifty miles), sir, upon that horse, between sunrise

and sunset."

"Gracious powers! on which horse?" said Doctor Dobbs, very

solemnly.

"On THIS, sir,--on mine, Corporal Brock of Cutts's black gelding,

'William of Nassau.' The Prince, sir, gave it me after Blenheim fight, for I

had my own legs carried away by a cannon-ball, just as I cut down two of

Sauerkrauter's regiment, who had made the Prince prisoner."

"Your own legs, sir!" said the Doctor. "Gracious goodness! this is more

and more astonishing!"

"No, no, not my own legs, my horse's I mean, sir; and the Prince gave

me 'William of Nassau' that very day."

To this no direct reply was made; but the Doctor looked at Mrs. Dobbs,

and Mrs. Dobbs and the rest of the children at her eldest son, who grinned

and said, "Isn't it wonderful?" The Corporal to this answered nothing, but,

resuming his account, pointed to the other horse and said, "THAT horse,

sir--good as mine is--that horse, with the silver stirrups, is his Excellency's

horse, Captain Count Maximilian Gustavus Adolphus von Galgenstein,

captain of horse and of the Holy Roman Empire" (he lifted here his hat

with much gravity, and all the crowd, even to the parson, did likewise).

"We call him 'George of Denmark,' sir, in compliment to Her Majesty's

husband: he is Blenheim too, sir; Marshal Tallard rode him on that day,

and you know how HE was taken prisoner by the Count."

"George of Denmark, Marshal Tallard, William of Nassau! this is

strange indeed, most wonderful! Why, sir, little are you aware that there

are before you, AT THIS MOMENT, two other living beings who bear

these venerated names! My boys, stand forward! Look here, sir: these

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Catherine:AStory1Catherine:AStorybyWilliamMakepeaceThackerayCatherine:AStory2ContentsAdvertisement1.Introducingtothereaderthechiefpersonagesofthisnarrative.2.Inwhicharedepictedthepleasuresofasentimentalattachment.3.Inwhichanarcoticisadministered,andagreatdealofgenteelsocietydepicted.4.InwhichMrs.Cat...

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