Sir Walter ScottSir Walter Scott was born in a building at College Wynd, Edinburgh, on 15 August 1771. There is some evidence that he may have been born in 1770 and when asked his mother about it, she said that she had forgotten the detail of his birth. There was no deep warmth between the parents and children of the Scott family. The Scott family had no fewer than twelve children and young Walter was the ninth. He and his two other brothers were the only children to survive. The other nine children died because they were premature or died shortly after birth. At the time of Walter's birth, his mother was thirty-nine and his father was forty-two and having a child was no longer exciting for them. His parents had named one of their first siblings Walter, born and died in 1766 and after naming young Walter he always felt he had a second-hand name. Walter was a healthy child until he was about eighteen months old and he had a very high fever that kept him in bed for some time. One day, while he was recovering, he was in the bath and it was realized that he had lost movement in his right leg. He suffered from infantile paralysis. Doctors tried to help him and fix him, but it was a lost cause. He wasn't completely crippled but his right leg would never be the same. His mother became pregnant again and she was unable to care for Walter while he was ill. So she sent him home to her grandfather's farm at Sandy Knowe in the spring of 1773. He remained on that farm until he was three and a half years old. It was heard that his grandfather taught him how to walk and eventually how to run. Everyone on the farm also encouraged Walter to talk to Walter's aunt; Janet Scott decided to raise Walter. For the next six years, she was Walter's adoptive mother and first teacher. Walter's relationship with his father lasted twenty-eight years and went through many different stages. Towering over everything else, Walter knew he was not an important child. Robert, his older brother, did not go to high school like his brothers but was sent to a higher boarding school. He also had the freedom to choose his profession unlike Walter..