osition of assistant fireman, his father
was compelled, by the closing of Dewley Burn mine, to get a fresh
situation hard by at Newburn. George accompanied him, and found
employment as full fireman at a small working, whose little engine he
undertook to manage in partnership with a mate, each of them tending
the fire night and day by twelve-hour shifts. Two years later, his
wages were raised to twelve shillings a week, a sure mark of his
diligent and honest work; so that George was not far wrong in remarking
to a fellow-workman at the time that he now considered himself a made
man for life.

During all this time, George Stephenson never for a moment ceased to
study and endeavour to understand the working of every part in the
engine that he tended. He was not satisfied, as too many workmen are,
with merely learning the routine work of his own trade; with merely
knowing that he must turn such and such a tap or valve in order to
produce such and such a desired result: he wanted to see for himself
how and why the engine did this or that, what was the use and object of
piston and cylinder and crank and joint and condenser--in short, fully
to understand the underlying principle of its construction. He took it
to pieces for cleaning whenever it was needful; he made working models
of it after his old childish pattern; he even ventured to tinker it up
when out of order on his own responsibility. Thus he learnt at last
something of the theory of the steam-engine, and learnt also by the way
a great deal about the general principles of mechanical science. Still,
even now, incredible as it seems, the future father of railways
couldn't yet read; and he found this terrible drawback told fatally
against his further progress. Whenever he wanted to learn something
that he didn't quite understand, he was always referred for information
to a Book. Oh, those books; those mysterious, unattainable,
incomprehensible books; how they must have bothered and worried poor
intelligent and aspiring but still painfully ignorant young George
Stephenson! Though he was already trying singularly valuable
experiments in his own way, he hadn't yet even begun to learn his
letters.

Under these circumstances, George Stephenson, eager and anxious for
further knowledge, took a really heroic resolution. He wasn't ashamed
to go to school. Though now a full workman on his own account, about
eighteen years old, he began to attend the night school at the