oach was the
biggest man I knew. I thought I should like to be the driver of a coach.
We had a picture in our cottage of George the Third in a red coat. I
always mixed up the driver of the mail-coach--who had a red coat,
too--with the king, only he had a low-crowned broad-brimmed hat, which
the king hadn't. In my idea, the king couldn't be a greater man than the
driver of the mail-coach. I had always a fancy to be a head man of some
kind. When I went to Leeds once, and saw a man conducting a orchestra, I
thought I should like to be the conductor of a orchestra. When I went
home I made myself a baton, and went about the fields conducting a
orchestra. It wasn't there, of course, but I pretended it was. At
another time, a man with a whip and a speaking-trumpet, on the stage
outside a show, took my fancy, and I thought I should like to be him.
But when the train came, the engine-driver put them all in the shade, and
I was resolved to be a engine-driver. It wasn't long before I had to do
something to earn my own living, though I was only a young 'un. My
father died suddenly--he was killed by thunder and lightning while
standing under a tree out of the rain--and mother couldn't keep us all.
The day after my father's burial I walked down to the station, and said I
wanted to be a engine-driver. The station-master laughed a bit, said I
was for beginning early, but that I was not quite big enough yet. He
gave me a penny, and told me to go home and grow, and come again in ten
years' time. I didn't dream of danger then. If I couldn't be a
engine-driver, I was determined to have something to do about a engine;
so, as I could get nothing else, I went on board a Humber steamer, and
broke up coals for the stoker. That was how I began. From that, I
became a stoker, first on board a boat, and then on a locomotive. Then,
after two years' service, I became a driver on the very Line which passed
our cottage. My mother and my brothers and sisters came out to look at
me, the first day I drove. I was watching for them and they was watching
for me, and they waved their hands and hoora'd, and I waved my hand to
them. I had the steam well up, and was going at a rattling pace, and
rare proud I was that minute. Never was so proud in my life!

"When a man has a liking for a thing it's as good as being clever. In a
very short time I became one of the best drivers on the Line. That was
allowed. I took a pride in it, you see, and