The Scotch are certainly a most pugnacious people; their whole history
proves it. Witness their incessant wars with the English in the olden
time, and their internal feuds, highland and lowland, clan with clan,
family with family, Saxon with Gael. In my time, the school-boys, for
want, perhaps, of English urchins to contend with, were continually
fighting with each other; every noon there was at least one pugilistic
encounter, and sometimes three. In one month I witnessed more of these
encounters than I had ever previously seen under similar circumstances in
England. After all, there was not much harm done. Harm! what harm could
result from short chopping blows, a hug, and a tumble? I was witness to
many a sounding whack, some blood shed, "a blue ee" now and then, but
nothing more. In England, on the contrary, where the lads were
comparatively mild, gentle, and pacific, I had been present at more than
one death caused by blows in boyish combats, in which the oldest of the
victors had scarcely reached thirteen years; but these blows were in the
jugular, given with the full force of the arm shot out horizontally from
the shoulder.

But, the Scotch--though by no means proficients in boxing (and how should
they box, seeing that they have never had a teacher?)--are, I repeat, a
most pugnacious people; at least they were in my time. Anything served
them, that is, the urchins, as a pretence for a fray, or, Dorically
speaking, a _bicker_; every street and close was at feud with its
neighbour; the lads of the school were at feud with the young men of the
college, whom they pelted in winter with snow, and in summer with stones;
and then the feud between the Old and New Town!

One day I was standing on the ramparts of the castle on the south-western
side which overhangs the green brae, where it slopes down into what was
in those days the green swamp or morass, called by the natives of Auld
Reekie the Nor Loch; it was a dark gloomy day, and a thin veil of mist
was beginning to settle down upon the brae and the morass. I could
perceive, however, that there was a skirmish taking place in the latter
spot. I had an indistinct view of two parties--apparently of urchins--and
I heard whoops and shrill cries. Eager to know the cause of this
disturbance, I left the castle, and descending the brae reached the
borders of the morass, where was a runnel of water and the remains of an
old wall, on the other side of which a narrow pat