Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
“Ten thousand dollars to our general use”! From the beginning of time Scotch fighting men have been mercenaries, and Scotch armies have insisted upon fining a vanquished foe. They did it in France; and they did it in their own country. And, after Naseby, the Scotch army in England, coming to the conclusion that there was nothing more to be done, straightway demanded a sum of money in the way of solatium for leaving the country. “Nor would we deign him burial of his men till he disbursed,” hits them hard. Shakespeare, as was his way, understood. Then one comes to the celebrated scene on the blasted heath. Here enter three witches, and to them Macbeth and Banquo. Macbeth, bloated with pride and devoured with ambition, falls an easy victim to Shakespeare’s trinity of hags.
All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!
The man swells visibly as a Scotchman should, and stalks off heroically, full of the consciousness of his own bigness. And mark how arrant a Scotchman he becomes in the result. In his castle he has for guest a king who has trusted him and bestowed honours and dignities upon him. “Conduct me to mine host,” says the unsuspecting monarch. “We love him highly, and shall continue our graces towards him.” And all the time the excellent Macbeth and his excellent lady are plotting murder. When it comes to the point of actual killing, the gentleman’s Scotch spirits fail him; he is really not sure, don’t you know, whether after all it ought to be done. Then the lady very naturally grows disgusted and shrill:
Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dress’d yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,