On the day the storm ceased Walter left his high stool and ponderous book early and joined his friends in solid array in their square. While they waited for the enemy to come up from the side street, the boys built snow fortifications across the Square and stocked them with ammunition sufficient to stand a siege. Still no enemy appeared, and, eager for a chance to try their aim, the boys of the Square boldly left their own haunts and proceeded down the Crosscauseway in search of the foe.
The enemy's country lay through narrow winding streets, and there was great need of care to avoid an ambuscade. Slipping from door to door, from one point of vantage to the next, the boys made the whole distance of the enemy's land without sight of an enemy. They came to the further boundary and raised a cheer of defiance, when suddenly a hail-storm of snowballs struck them, and from a side street the boys of the Crosscauseway shot out. The invaders fired one round, then turned and fled before a fierce charge.
Back the way they came the boys retreated, and after them came the enemy pelting them without mercy and with good aim. In the van of the pursuit ran a tall, fair-haired boy, who wore the bright green breeches of a tailor's clerk, who was famous for his prowess in these schoolboy battles, and who, because of his clothes, had been given the picturesque nickname of "Green Breeks."
Young Scott and his friends ran back into their square, but the enemy were close upon their heels. Green Breeks was now far in the lead of his forces, so far in the lead that he might have been cut off had not the pursued been panic-stricken. Over their own fortifications the boys 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 their characters.
Street in Edinburgh Where Scott Played as a Boy