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?' 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 of the
two men were widely dissimilar--yet what is the intrinsic difference
between them? Very great indeed; the one acted according to his lights
and his country, not so the other. Tamerlane was a heathen, and acted
according to his lights; he was a robber where all around were robbers,
but he became the avenger of God--God's scourge on unjust kings, on the
cruel Bajazet, who had