mself about that at length he
became able to rise to his feet and even to walk and run.

[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT 1771-1832]

Except for his lameness, he grew so well and strong that when he was
about eight years old he was placed with his brothers in the upper class
of the Edinburgh grammar school, known as the High School. Though he had
had some lessons in Latin with a private tutor, he was behind his class
in this subject, and being a high-spirited and sensitive boy, he felt
rather keenly this disadvantage. Perhaps the fact that he could not be
one of the leaders of his class made him careless; at any rate, he could
never be depended upon to prepare his lesson, and at no time did he make
a consistently good record. However, he found not a little comfort for
his failure as a student in his popularity as a storyteller and
kind-hearted comrade. Among the boys of his own rank in the school he
won great admiration for his never-ending supply of exciting narratives
and his willingness to give help upon lessons that he would otherwise
have left undone.

At the end of three years his class was promoted, and he found the new
teacher much more to his liking. Indeed, his ability to appreciate the
meaning and beauty of the Latin works studied became recognized: he
began to make translations in verse that won praise, and, with a new
feeling of distinction, he was thus urged on to earnest efforts. After
leaving this school, he continued his excellent progress in the study of
Latin for a short time under a teacher in the village of Kelso, where he
had gone to visit an aunt.

Meanwhile his hours out of school were spent in ways most pleasing to
his lively imagination. His lameness did not debar him from the most
active sports, nor even from the vigorous encounters in which, either
with a single opponent or with company set against company, the Scotch
schoolboys defended their reputation as hard fighters. One of these
skirmishes that made a lasting impression upon Walter Scott he himself
tells us of, and his biographer, Lockhart, has quoted it in describing
the hardy boyhood days of the great writer. It frequently happened that
bands of children from different parts of Edinburgh would wage war with
each other, fighting with stones and clubs and other like weapons.
Perhaps the city authorities thought that these miniature battles
afforded good training: at least the police seem not to have interfered.
The boys in the neighb