keeping them clear of the railroad track, and barring the gates at night after all the coal-wagons had passed. He had plenty of spare time, which he spent in birdnesting, and also in making little mills, which he erected in the streams which run into the Dewley bog. But his passion was for engines, which with a favorite playfellow he shaped from clay, the hemlock furnishing them with an abundance of imaginary steam-pipes. As he grew older he performed various labors, such as leading plough-horses, hoeing turnips, and other farmwork; but ever since he had begun to model his engines in the bog, his desire was to become a fireman, and great therefore was his exultation when, at about fourteen years of age, he was appointed assistant fireman, with the compensation of one shilling a day. He was afraid that he should be thought too young for his work. and used to relate how he was wont to hide from sight when the owner of the colliery went his rounds.

When George was about seventeen years of age, he was sent to Water-row, about half a mile west of Newburn Church, to work a pumping-engine in connection with his father, who was still employed as fireman. George's post was that of plugman, and he was very young for so responsible a situation. His duty was to watch the engine, to see that it worked well, and that the pumps drew water efficiently. He gained a complete insight into the machine, in his leisure hours often taking it to pieces, and examining all its details, so that he soon became absolute master of its workings.

So indigent, however, had his father's circumstances always been, that George had received no school in

struction, and at the age of eighteen he could not read, and did not even know his letters. He now began to feel the serious disadvantages under which he labored, and determined to find leisure for study, though his work at the engine occupied twelve hours a day. He was stimulated in his desire of knowledge, by seeing how highly any one who could read was appreciated by his fellow-workmen. It was at the period of Napoleon's astounding victories in Italy, and every chance newspaper which found its way into Newburn village was eagerly seized, and attracted a large circle of listeners, who gathered around the expounder of its contents. He was told, too, that the wonderful engines of Watt and Bolton, about which he heard so much and wished to know more, were all fully described in books. With such inducements, for three nights in each week he attended a school kept by Robin Cowens, a poor teacher in the village of Walbottle. He paid threepence a week, and, although his teacher was not very skilful, he soon learned to read, and at the age of nineteen was proud of being able to write his own

name.

In the winter of 1799 he attended another night school, set up by a Scotch dominie, Andrew Robertson, who was a skilled arithmetician, and from him George soon acquired a knowledge of figures. The poor master became very proud of his pupil, and when the Waterrow Pit closed, and Stephenson removed to Black Callerton, to work there, Robertson, not having much to do at Newburn, accompanied his scholars and continued his instructions. This was in the year 1801, when George, having learnt the art of "braking" the engine, was regularly appointed brakeman of the Dolly Pit,

at advanced wages. He was now twenty years of age, earning from fifteen to twenty shillings a week by his regular work, to which about this time he added the art of shoe-making and mending for his fellow-workmen. He became quite expert in this new calling, and on one occasion had the happiness of soling the shoes of his sweetheart, Fanny Henderson, a pretty, fine-tempered, and high-principled young woman, who was servant in a neighboring farm-house, and attracted Stephenson's attention by her good sense, modesty, and kind disposition. By these labors, Stephenson was enabled to save his first guinea, no small achievement for a man in his station. He at the same time pursued his studies most diligently, finally outstripping his master in arithmetic, and improving so rapidly in chirography, that, on the occasion of his marriage, his signature in the parish register was traced in a good, legible round hand. His delight, when he took a little time for recreation, consisted in rambling about the fields and hedges for birds' nests, a pastime which he continued to enjoy all his life. He also excelled in all manner of athletic sports, such as throwing the hammer and "putting" the stone, and on one occasion, peaceable as his disposition was, he found his practised strength of signal service in beating a noted bully of the colliery, who, dissatisfied at the manner in which Stephenson, as brakeman, drew him out of the pit, challenged him to a pitched battle. Stephenson met and soon worsted him.

At the period of his marriage, on the 28th of November, 1802, Stephenson, by dint of thrift and industry, was enabled to furnish a small house in a decent manner, at Willington on the north bank of the Tyne, about six miles below Newcastle, whither he had

been transferred from Black Callerton. At this place he remained until 1804, happy in the society of his wife, studying the principles of mechanics so that he might master the laws by which his engine worked, and busying himself also, as many had done before him, on the problem of perpetual motion. His house having one day been injured by fire, and his clock so choked with soot that it stopped, he took it to pieces, repaired it, and acquired at once such knowledge of its mechanism that he became the best clock-repairer in the neighborhood, thus adding to his earnings. His son Robert, for many years prominent as the inheritor of his father's genius as an engineer, and familiar to many of our readers as the builder of the iron tubular bridge over Menai Strait, was born on the 16th of December, 1803. During the following year George Stephenson's home was made desolate by the death of his wife, whom he long and tenderly lamented. Just before this sad bereavement, he had again removed, to Killingworth, seven miles north of Newcastle; and it was while residing here that his great practical qualities as an engineer began to attract the notice of his employers, and that he slowly but surely laid the foundation of his fame as a workman and an inventor.

Soon after the death of his wife he received an invitation from some gentlemen engaged in large works near Montrose, in Scotland, to proceed thither and superintend the working of one of Bolton and Watt's engines. He accepted the offer, making the long journey to Scotland and back on foot, with his kit upon his back; and after being absent about a year, he returned to Killingworth, having saved £ 28 from his good wages. On his arrival at home he found that his father had

been deprived of sight, by a fellow-workman having accidentally turned a blast of steam into his face, as he was making repairs on the inside of an engine. Out of his savings George's first step was to pay his father's debts, amounting to some £15. He then placed him in a comfortable cottage, and entirely supported him for the rest of his life.

About this time, 1807--8, while employed as brakeman at the West Moor Pit, he does not appear to have been very sanguine as to his prospects in life. It was a period of great distress for working-people; enormous taxes were imposed upon nearly every article of consumption, and persons whose income amounted only to £50 a year were taxed ten per cent upon this sum. Fearful riots, suppressed only by military force, occurred in Manchester, Newcastle, and other manufacturing towns, growing out of the lowness of wages and the high price of bread. Such laborers as found employment were regularly mulcted of part of their scanty earnings, to support those who could find no work. In 1805, the gross forces of the United Kingdom amounted to 700,000 men; yet, in 1808, Lord Castlereagh carried a measure to enroll a local militia of 200,000. The drum and fife of the recruiting-sergeant were never silent, and at any moment men might be drafted into the militia, or seized by a press-gang. George Stephenson was one of those summarily drawn for the militia. The only alternative was to pay a considerable sum for a substitute, which he was just able to do with the residue of his little store. Almost in despair, he seriously thought of emigrating to America. One of his sisters, with her husband, was about to make the passage, and he doubtless would have accompanied