Eight years passed, and Robert grew into young manhood. One of his younger brothers had joined him and Andrew Marshall in the partnership. It had been a long, stiff struggle, and his mother knew all the hardness and cruelty of it. In after years Robert loved his mother more for the fight she put up, though it never seemed to him that he himself had done anything extraordinary. He was always thoughtful, and planned to save her worry. On "pay-nights," once a fortnight, when other boys of his age were getting a sixpence, or perhaps even a shilling, as pocket-money, so that they could spend a few coppers on the things that delight a boy's heart, Robert resolutely refused to take a penny. For years he continued thus, always solacing himself with the thought that it was a "shilling's worth less of worry" his mother would have. Yet, riches were his in that the enchantment of literature held him captive, and his imagination gained for him treasures incomparably greater than the solid wealth prized by worldly minds. His father had possessed about a dozen good books, among others such familiar Scottish household favorites as "Wilson's Tales of the Borders," "Mansie Waugh," by "Delta," "Scots Worthies," Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," Scott's "Rob Roy" and "Old Mortality," and the well-thumbed and dog-eared copy of Robert Burns' Poems. "Gae awa', man Robin," his mother would say sometimes to him, as he sat devouring Wilson's "Tales" or weeping over the tragic end of Wallace's wife Marion as recounted in Jean Porter's entrancing "Scottish Chiefs." "Gang awa' oot an' tak' a walk. Ither laddies are a' oot playin' at something, an' forby it's no' healthy to sit too long aye readin'." "Ach. I canna' be bothered," he would answer. "I'd raither read." "What is't you're readin' noo?" she would enquire. "Oh, it's the 'Scottish Chiefs,' an' I'm jist at the bit aboot Wallace's wife being murdered by Hazelrig. My! It's awfu' vexin'." "Ay, it's a fine book, Robin. Ye might read that bit oot to me." "A' richt," and he would start to read while Nellie sat down to listen. Soon both were engrossed in the sad story, so powerfully told, and the tears would be running from the mother's eyes as her fancy pictured the sorrows of Wallace, while Robert's voice would break, and a sob come into his throat, as he proceeded. When finally the passage was reached where the brutal blow was struck, the book would have to be put down, while mother and son both cried as if the grief depicted were their own. "It's an awfu' gran' book, Rob," she would say after a time, while she strove to subdue the sobs in her breast. "Puir Wallace! It maun ha'e been an awfu' blow to him, when he heard that Marion was killed. But you maun read on a bit far'er, for I'm no' gaun tae work ony mair till I see that dirty beast Hazelrig get his deserts. He has wrocht for it, sae jist gang on noo till you feenish the bit aboot him gettin' killed wi' Wallace. He deserves it for killin' a woman."