ow. He was also a great
boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had put to flight;
mere men in buckram, as everybody knew. We boys," he continued,
"believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play him a trick.
Two other boys joined me in waylaying Straker one night at that corner,"
pointing to it. "We sprang out and called upon him, in as gruff voices
as we could assume, to 'stand and deliver!' He dropped down upon his
knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man, with a sma' family,
asking for 'mercy,' and imploring us, as 'gentlemen, for God's sake, t'
let him a-be!' We couldn't stand this any longer, and set up a shout of
laughter. Recognizing our boys' voices, he sprang to his feet and
rattled out a volley of oaths; on which we cut through the hedge, and
heard him shortly after swearing his way along the road to the
yel-house."

On another occasion, Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat
different character. Like his father, he was very fond of reducing his
scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin's description
of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his store of Saturday
pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper wire at a brazier's
shop in Newcastle. Having prepared his kite, he sent it up in the field
opposite his father's door, and bringing the wire, insulated by means of
a few feet of silk cord, over the backs of some of Farmer Wigham's cows,
he soon had them skipping about the field in all directions with their
tails up. One day he had his kite flying at the cottage-door as his
father's galloway was hanging by the bridle to the paling, waiting for
the master to mount. Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony's
crupper, so smart an electric shock was given it, that the brute was
almost knocked down. At this juncture the father issued from the door,
riding-whip in hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played
off upon his galloway. "Ah! you mischievous scoondrel!" cried he to the
boy, who ran off. He inwardly chuckled with pride, nevertheless, at
Robert's successful experiment. {57}

[Picture: Stephenson's Cottage, West Moor]

At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage
standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor colliery to
Killingworth. The railway from the West Moor Pit crosses this road close
by the east end of the cottage. The dwelling originally c