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Updated: May 8, 2025
"I have told thee more than once," said Durward, sternly, "to restrain thy ribaldry when thou chancest to be in worthy men's company, a thing, which, I believe, hath rarely happened to thee in thy life before now, and I promise thee, that did I hold thee as faithless a guide as I esteem thee a blasphemous and worthless caitiff, my Scottish dirk and thy heathenish heart had ere now been acquainted, although the doing such a deed were as ignoble as the sticking of swine."
I beseech but of your exquisite mercy to refrain mouldering the clay composition of my unworthy body to impalpable dust, by the refulgence of those bright stars vulgarly called eyes, till I have lawfully wreaked my vengeance upon this unobliging caitiff, for his most disloyal obstruction of your highness's adorable pleasure."
There is no doubt that he had sapiently laid down his plans to harass and persecute his daughter into a marriage with Sir Robert, and would have probably driven her from under his roof, had he not received the programme of his conduct from Whitecraft. That cowardly caitiff had a double motive in this.
I know that no caitiff could be found so vile as to dare to lay hands on a Vestal, no ruffian so reckless as to venture to end her life by sword or axe, by strangling or drowning. The most impious miscreant has too much fear of the gods to injure a consecrated priestess. The only way to dispose of a delinquent Vestal is to bury her alive. But the cruelty of it makes me choke.
Caitiff, which is not a word used now except occasionally in poetry, means a "base, cowardly person;" but captive has, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word. Another pair of doublets, which are quite different in form and almost opposite to each other in meaning, are guest and hostile.
Besides, no matter who one may be or how engaged, it is not wholly seemly to be accosted as a caitiff, when one is on one's own land, offending no man on earth, owing no debt and paying no tribute, feudal, commercial, military or personal, to any man on earth. The situation seemed to me singular.
With a heavy heart Odysseus went up to the house where he had been received so kindly, and told his sorrowful tale. "Pity my weakness," he pleaded, "and let me not suffer for the sins of my men." But Æolus was not to be moved. "Begone," he said sternly, "quit this island at once, thou caitiff! Heaven hath set the seal of its hatred upon thee, and I may not give countenance to such as thou.
"I had by this time entire confidence in our Scotchmen, and therefore regarded the caitiff with the same indifference that I should have viewed a caged wild beast, though with much greater abhorrence. *
That though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable than any creature living; and, for your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than any living creature in the world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you: That she be contented you should live, and doth in no ways wish you death; but to this end, that all the plagues and miseries that may befal any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are, and that you should live to have all your friends forsake you; and without your great repentances, which she looketh not for, because your life hath been so bad, you will be damned perpetually in hell-fire."
He merely saw a proudly erect mistress and a cowering slave; and it was no unusual thing to interrupt a Roman lady in the act of giving even corporeal correction to her attendant, nor did the stranger's entrance always cause the punishment to cease. 'Has the caitiff been insolent? he exclaimed, in gallant tone, as he approached and seated himself before her.
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