oys fled
and dropped behind them for safety. Their banner, a flag given them by a
lady of the Square, waved defiantly in Green Breeks' face. The tall boy
leaped upon the rampart and seized the standard, when a blow from a
stick brought him to the ground. He fell stunned, and the blood poured
from a cut in his head.

The watchman in George's Square was used to the boys' battles, but not
to such an ending to them. He hurried over to the fallen Green Breeks,
and the boys of both armies melted silently away. Shortly after Green
Breeks was in the hospital, his head bandaged, but otherwise little the
worse for his mishap.

A confectioner in the Crosscauseway acted as messenger between the boys
of the Causeway and the Square, and to him Walter Scott and his brother
went early the next morning and asked if he would take Green Breeks some
money to pay for his wound and loss of time in the tailor's shop. Green
Breeks in the hospital had been asked to tell the name of the one who
had struck him, but had refused pointblank, and none of either party
could be found to tell. When the wounded leader heard of Walter's offer
he refused to accept the money on the ground that such accidents were
apt to happen to any one in battle, and that he did not need the money.
Walter sent another message, inquiring if Green Breeks' family were in
need of anything he could supply, and received the answer that he lived
with his aged grandmother who was very fond of taking snuff. Thereupon
Walter presented the old woman with a pound of snuff, and as soon as
Green Breeks was out of the hospital made him one of his friends.

With the opening of spring Walter spent all his spare hours in his
favorite pursuit, riding through the country on a search for old
legends or curious tales of the neighborhood. Scottish history was his
never-ending delight; he knew every battle-field in the vicinity of
Edinburgh, and could tell how the armies had come to meet and what was
the result. Stories of sprites and goblins, of witches and magicians,
were eagerly sought by him. Many an old woman was led to tell the lame
boy with the eager eyes the tales she had heard as a schoolgirl, and was
well repaid by the boy's rapt attention. Hardly a stick or a stone, a
stream or a hill in the Lowlands that had a history but Walter Scott
learned it, and at the same time he learned to know the plain people,
all their habits and customs, and all the little eccentricities that
made up t