year's absence, he marched back again, on
foot, to Killingworth, with twenty-eight
pounds in his pocket. During his absence a
bad accident had happened to his father.
The steam-blast had been inadvertently let
in upon him when he was inside an engine.
It struck him in the face, and blinded him
for the remainder of his life. George coming
home from Scotland, paid the old man's
debts, removed his parents to a comfortable
cottage near his own place of work at
Killingworth—for he was again taken on as
brakesman at the West Moor Pit—and
worked for them during the remainder of
their lives. At this time there was
distress and riot among labourers. George
was drawn for the militia, and spent the
remainder of his savings on the payment of
a substitute. He was so much disabled in
fortune that he thought of emigrating to
America, as one of his sisters was then doing
in company with her husband, but—happily
for his own country—he could not raise
money enough to take him out of it. To a
friend he afterwards said of his sorrow at
this time, "You know the road from my
house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I
remember, when I went along that road, I
wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot
would be cast."

It was a slight advance in independence,
although no advance in fortune, when
Stephenson, at the age of twenty-seven, joined
two other brakesmen in taking a small
contract under the lessees for brakeing the
engines at the West Moor pit. The profits
did not always bring him in a pound a-week.
His little son, Robert, was growing up, and
he was bent firmly on giving him what he
himself had lacked: the utmost attainable
benefit of education in his boyhood. Therefore
George spent his nights in mending
clocks and watches for his neighbours,
mended and made shoes, cut out lasts, even
cut out the pitmen's clothes for their wives
to make up, and worked at their embroidery
He turned every spare minute to account
and so wrung, from a stubborn fortune, power
to give the first rudiments of education to
his son.

At last there came a day when all the
cleaning and dissecting of his engines turned
to profit, and the clock-doctor won the more
important character of engine-doctor. He
had on various occasions suggested to the
owners small contrivances which had saved
wear and tear of material, or otherwise
improved the working of his pit. When
was twenty-nine years old, a new pit was
sunk at Killingworth—now known as the
Killingworth High Pit—over which a
Newcomen engine was fixed for the purpose of
pumping water from the shaft. For some
reason the engine failed; as one of the work
men engaged on it tells the case, "she
couldn't keep her jack-head in water; all the
engine-men in the neighbourhood were tried,
as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but
they were clean bet." The engine pumped
to no purpose for nearly twelve months.
Stephenson had observed, when he saw it
built, that if there was much water in the
mine, that engine wouldn't keep it under, but
to the opinion of a common brakesman no
heed had been paid. He used often to inquire
as to "how she was getting on," and the
answer always was, that the men were still
drowned out. One Saturday afternoon, George
went to the High Pit, and made a close
xamination of the whole machine. Kit
Heppel, sinker at the pit, said to him when
he had done,

"Weel, George, what do you mak' o' her?
Do you think you could do anything to
improve her?"

"Man," said George, " I could alter her
and make her draw. In a week's time from
this I could send you to the bottom."

The conversation was reported to Ralph
Dods, the head viewer. George was known
to be an ingenious and determined fellow:
and, as Dods said, "the engineers hereabouts are
all bet." The brakesman, therefore, was at
once allowed to try his skill: he could not
make matters worse than they were, and he
might mend them. He was set to work at.
once, picked his own men to carry out the
alterations he thought necessary, took the
whole engine to pieces, reconstructed it, and
really did, in a week's time after his talk
with Heppel, clear the pit of water. This
achievement brought him fame as a pump-
curer. Dods made him a present of ten
pounds, and he was appointed engine-man on
good wages at the pit he had redeemed, until
the work of sinking was completed. The job
lasted about a year. Thus, at the age of thirty,
Stephenson had begun to find his way across
the borders of the engineer's profession. To
all the wheezy engines in the neighbourhood
he was called in as a professional adviser.
The regular men called him a quack; but the
quack perfectly understood the constitution
of an engine, and worked miracles of healing.
One day, as he passed a drowned quarry,
on his way from work, at which a windmill
worked an inefficient pump, he told the
men, "he would set up for them an engine
no bigger than a kail-pot, that would clear
them out in a week." And he fulfilled his
promise.

A year after his triumph at the High.
Pit, the engine-wright at Killingworth was.
killed by an accident, and George titephenson,
on Mr. Dods' recommendation, was promoted
to his place by the lessees. He was appointed,
engine-wright to the colliery at a salary of
one hundred pounds a-year.

At this time of his life, Stephenson was
associating with John Wigham, a farmer's
son, who understood the rule of three, who
had acquired some little knowledge of
chemistry and natural philosophy, and who
possessed a volume of Ferguson's Lectures on