surprise you even more:--She once stood upon a scaffold, under sentence
of death--[but, understand, on the evidence of false witnesses]. Jack
Ketch was absolutely tying the knot under her ear, and the shameful man
of ropes fumbled so deplorably, that Kate (who by much nautical
experience had learned from another sort of 'Jack' how a knot _should_
be tied in this world,) lost all patience with the contemptible artist,
told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and
tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a
festal roll, long and loud, of _vivas_; and this word _viva_ of good
augury--but stop; let me not anticipate.

From this sketch of Catalina's character, the reader is prepared to
understand the decision of her present proceeding. She had no time to
lose: the twilight favored her; but she must get under hiding before
pursuit commenced. Consequently she lost not one of her forty-five
minutes in picking and choosing. No _shilly-shally_ in Kate. She
saw with the eyeball of an eagle what was indispensable. Some little
money perhaps to pay the first toll-bar of life: so, out of four
shillings in Aunty's purse, she took one. You can't say _that_ was
exorbitant. Which of us wouldn't subscribe a shilling for poor Katy to
put into the first trouser pockets that ever she will wear? I remember
even yet, as a personal experience, that when first arrayed, at four
years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining
hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my
trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that
had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, of
which I can render no account at this day. But what were my poor
pretensions by the side of Kate's? Kate was a fine blooming girl of
fifteen, with no touch of ague, and, before the next sun rises, Kate
shall draw on her first trousers, and made by her own hand; and, that