Thus Robert would have to go on, until the incident in question had been reached in the story, and as it unfolded itself his voice would grow firmer and stronger as he became infected with the narrative, while his mother's eyes would glow, and her body be tense with interest, and an expectant expression would creep over her face, betraying her excitement. In the interview between Wallace and Hazelrig in the house in the Wellgate in Lanark, when Wallace dramatically draws his sword in answer to the supplication for mercy, and says: "Ay, the same mercy as you showed my Marion," Robert's voice would thunder forth the words with terrible sternness, while Nellie would gasp and catch her breath in a quick little sob of excitement, as the feeling of satisfied justice filled her heart. And when the blow fell that laid the English governor low, she would burst out: "Serves him richt, the dirty tyrant. He's got what he deserved, an' it serves him right!" On another occasion Robert would suddenly burst out laughing, when reading Delta's chronicle of the adventures of Mansie Waugh, the Scottish "Handy Andy." "What are you laughing at, Robin?" Nellie would enquire, a smile breaking over her face also. "Oh, it's Mansie Waugh, mither. Oh, but it's a gran' bit. Listen to this," and he would begin to read the passage, where Mansie, simple soul that he was, was described as going into the byre in the morning to learn if the cow had calved during the night, and finding, on opening the door, the donkey of a traveling tinker, he turned and ran into the house, crying: "Mither! Mither! The coo has calved, an' it's a cuddy!" Whenever he reached this part of the story, his mother would go off into a fit of uncontrollable laughter which left her helpless and crumpled up in a heap upon the nearest chair. Her laugh was very infectious; it began with a low, mirthful ripple, well down in the throat, and rose in rapid leaps of musical joy till it had traveled a whole octave of bubbling happy sounds, when it culminated in a peal of double forte shakes and trills, that made it a joy to hear, and finally it died out in an "Oh, dear me! What a callan Mansie was!" As Robert approached manhood, he took more and more to the moors, wandering alone among the haunts of the whaup and other moor birds, wrestling with problems to which older heads never gave a thought, trying to understand life and to build from his heart and experience something that would be satisfying. Silent, thoughtful, "strange" to the neighbors, a problem to everyone, but a bigger one to himself, life staggered him and appalled his soul.