to Canada, and
involve in adventures with the natives and colonists of that country. Perhaps
the youthful generosity of the lad will not seem so great in the eyes of others
as to those whom it was the means of screening from severe rebuke and
punishment. But it seemed, to those concerned, to argue a nobleness of sentiment
far beyond the pitch of most minds; and however obscurely the lad who showed
such a frame of noble spirit may have lived or died, I cannot help being of
opinion, that if fortune had placed him in circumstances calling for gallantry
or generosity, the man would have fulfilled the promises of the boy. Long
afterwards, when the story was told to my father, he censured us severely for
not telling the truth at the time, that he might have attempted to be of use to
the young man in entering on life. But our alarms for the consequences of the
drawn sword, and the wound inflicted with such a weapon, were far too
predominant at the time for such a pitch of generosity.
    Perhaps I ought not to have inserted this school-boy tale; but besides the
strong impression made by the incident at the time, the whole accompaniments of
the story are matters to me of solemn and sad recollection. Of all the little
band who were concerned in those juvenile sports or brawls, I can scarce
recollect a single survivor. Some left the ranks of mimic war to die in the
active service of their country. Many sought distant lands to return no more.
Others, dispersed in different paths of life, »my dim eyes now seek for in
vain.« Of five brothers, all healthy and promising, in a degree far beyond one
whose infancy was visited by personal infirmity, and whose health after this
period seemed long very precarious, I am, nevertheless, the only survivor. The
best loved, and the best deserving to be loved, who had destined this incident
to be the foundation of literary composition, died »before his day« in a distant
and foreign land; and trifles assume an importance not their own when connected
with those who have been loved and lost.
 

                                    Appendix

                         To Introduction (1829), p. 20.

The mutual protection afforded by Waverley and Talbot to each other upon which
the whole plot depends, is founded upon one of those anecdotes which soften the
features even of civil war; and as it is equally honourable to the memory of
both parties, we have no hesitation to give their names at length. When the
Highlanders, on the morning of the battle of Preston, 1745, made their memorable
attack on Sir