of him, which bore the
unappealing title, Erskine's "Institutes." The type was fine, and the
young student had to read each line a dozen times before he could
understand it. Sometimes his eyes would involuntarily close and he would
doze a few moments, only to wake with a start to look quickly at another
desk near the fire where his father sat steadily writing, and then to a
table in the corner where a very old man was always sorting papers.

The winter light grew dim, so dim that the boy could no longer see to
read. He closed the book with a bang.

"Father."

"Yes, Walter, lad?" The lawyer looked up from his writing, and smiled at
the figure on the high stool.

"I'd best be going home; there's no more light here to see by."

"A good reason, Walter. Wrap yourself up warm, for the night is cold."

Young Walter slid down from his seat, and stretched his arms and legs to
cure the stiffness in them. He was a sturdy, well-built lad, with
tousled yellow hair, frank eyes with a twinkle in them, and a mouth that
was large and betokened humor. When he walked he limped, but he held
himself so straight that when he was still no one would have noticed the
deformity.

Five minutes later the boy was plowing his way through the narrow
streets of the Canongate, the old part of Edinburgh that had as ancient
a history of street brawls as the Paris kennels. Nobody who could help
it was abroad, and Walter was glad when he reached the door of his
father's house in George's Square and could find shelter from the
cutting wind. The Scotch evening meal was simple, soon over, and then
came the time to sit before the blazing logs on the great open hearth
and tell stories.

The older people were busy at cards in another room, and Walter, with a
group of boys of his own age who lived in the neighborhood and liked to
be with the lame lad, had the fireside to themselves.

In front of the fire young Walter was no longer the sleepy student of
Erskine's "Institutes"; his eyes shone as he told story after story of
the Scotch border, half of them founded on old ballads or legends he
knew by heart and half the product of his own eager imagination. Whole
poems, filled with battles and hunts and knightly adventures, he could
recite from memory, and his eye for the color and trappings of history
was so keen that the boys could see the very scenes before them. They
sat in a circle about him, listening eagerly to story after story,
forgetting everythi