Two more volumes of Tales followed.  Then there was no need to write more for the dearly loved grandson, as a year or two later, when he was only eleven, poor Littlejohn died.  But already the kind grandfather was near his end also, the tremendous effort which he made to force himself to work beyond his strength could not be kept up.  His health broke down under it.  Still he struggled on, but at last, yielding to his friends’ entreaties, he went to Italy in search of health and strength.  It gives us some idea of the high place Sir Walter had won for himself in the hearts of the people, when we learn that his health seemed a national concern, and that a warship was sent to take him on his journey.  But the journey was of no avail.  Among the great hills and blue lakes of Italy Scott longed for the lesser hills and grayer lochs of Scotland.  So he turned homewards.  And at home, in his beloved Abbotsford, in the still splendor of an autumn day, with the meadow-scented air he loved fanning his face, and the sound of rippling Tweed in his ears, he closed his eyes for ever.  In the grass-grown ruin of Dryburgh Abbey, not far from his home, he was laid to rest, while the whole countryside mourned Sir Walter.

Before he died Scott had paid 70,000 pounds of his debt, an enormous sum for one man to make by his pen in six years.  He died in the happy belief that all was paid, as indeed it all was.  For after the author’s death, his books still brought in a great deal of money, so that in fifteen years the debt was wiped out.

I have not told you any of Scott’s stories here, because, unlike many of the books we have spoken of, they are easily to be had.  And the time will soon come, if it has not come already, when you can read Sir Walter’s books, just as he wrote them.  It is best, I think, that you should read them so, for Sir Walter Scott is perhaps the first of all our great writers nearly the whole of whose books a child can read without help.  You will find many long descriptions in them, but do not let them frighten you.  You need not read them all the first time, and very likely you will want to read them the second time.

But perhaps before you read his novels you will like to read his Metrical Romances.  For when we are children—­big children perhaps, but still children—­is the time to read them.  Long ago in the twelfth century, when the people of England were simple and unlearned, they loved Metrical Romances, and we when we are simple and unlearned may love them too.  Many of these old romances, however, are hard to get, and they are written in a language hard for many of us to understand.  But Sir Walter Scott, in the nineteenth century, has recreated for us all the charm of those old tales.  For this then, let us thank and remember him.