Whether we should have had the courage to carry out the design had not fortune favoured us, I cannot tell. But as soon as the chariot reached a part of the hill where the slope was less, it turned a little to one side, and Scroggie fell off, drawing half of the load after him. My men rushed in with shouts of defiant onset, but were arrested by the non-resistance of the foe. I sprung to seize Scroggie. He tried to get up, but fell back with a groan. The moment I saw his face, my mood changed. My hatred, without will or wish or effort of mine, turned all at once into pity or something better. In a moment I was down on my knees beside him. His face was white, and drops stood upon his forehead. He lay half upon his side, and with one hand he scooped handfuls of dirt from the road and threw them down again. His leg was broken. I got him to lean his head against me, and tried to make him lie more comfortably; but the moment I sought to move the leg he shrieked out. I sent one of our swiftest runners for the doctor, and in the meantime did the best I could for him. He took it as a matter of course, and did not even thank me. When the doctor came, we got a mattress from a neighbouring house, laid it on the wagon, lifted Scroggie on the top, and dragged him up the hill and home to his mother.
I have said a little, but only a little, concerning our master, Mr. Wilson. At the last examination I had, in compliance with the request of one of the clergymen, read aloud a metrical composition of my own, sent in by way of essay on the given subject, _Patriotism_, and after this he had shown me a great increase of favour. Perhaps he recognized in me some germ of a literary faculty--I cannot tell: it has never come to much if he did, and he must be greatly disappointed in me, seeing I labour not in living words, but in dead stones. I am certain, though, that whether I build good or bad houses, I should have built worse had I not had the insight he gave me into literature and the nature of literary utterance. I read Virgil and Horace with him, and scanned every doubtful line we came across. I sometimes think now, that what certain successful men want to make them real artists, is simply a knowledge of the literature--which is the essence of the possible art--of the country.