ie, if I might be a
great man first.

_Myself_. And wha kens, Davie, how great you may be, even without
hanging? Are ye not in the high road of preferment? Are ye not a bauld
drummer already? Wha kens how high ye may rise? perhaps to be general,
or drum-major.

_David Haggart_. I hae nae wish to be drum-major; it were nae great
things to be like the doited carle, Else-than-gude, as they call him;
and, troth, he has nae his name for naething. But I should have nae
objection to be a general, and to fight the French and Americans, and win
myself a name and a fame like Willie Wallace, and do brave deeds, such as
I have been reading about in his story book.

_Myself_. Ye are a fule, Davie; the story book is full of lies. Wallace,
indeed! the wuddie rebel! I have heard my father say that the Duke of
Cumberland was worth twenty of Willie Wallace.

_David Haggart_. Ye had better sae naething agin Willie Wallace,
Geordie, for, if ye do, De'il hae me, if I dinna tumble ye doon the
craig.

Fine materials in that lad for a hero, you will say. Yes, indeed, for a
hero, or for what he afterwards became. In other times, and under other
circumstances, he might have made what is generally termed a great man, a
patriot, or a conqueror. As it was, the very qualities which might then
have pushed him on to fortune and renown were the cause of his ruin. The
war over, he fell into evil courses; for his wild heart and ambitious
spirit could not brook the sober and quiet pursuits of honest industry.

'Can an Arabian steed submit to be a vile drudge?' I cries the fatalist.
Nonsense! A man is not an irrational creature, but a reasoning being,
and has something within him beyond mere brutal instinct. The greatest
victory which a man can achieve is over himself, by which is meant those
unruly passions which are not convenient to the time and place. David
did not do this; he gave the reins to his wild heart, instead of curbing
it, and became a robber, and, alas! alas! he shed blood--under peculiar
circumstances, it is true, and without _malice prepense_--and for that
blood he eventually died, and justly; for it was that of the warden of a
prison from which he was escaping, and whom he slew with one blow of his
stalwart arm.

Tamerlane and Haggart! Haggart and Tamerlane! Both these men were
robbers, and of low birth, yet one perished on an ignoble scaffold, and
the other died emperor of the world. Is this justice? The ends