neighbouring village of Walbottle, where he took lessons in reading
three evenings every week. It is a great thing when a man is not
ashamed to learn. Many men are; they consider themselves so immensely
wise that they look upon it as an impertinence in anybody to try to
tell them anything they don't know already. Truly wise or truly great
men--men with the capability in them for doing anything worthy in their
generation--never feel this false and foolish shame. They know that
most other people know some things in some directions which they do
not, and they are glad to be instructed in them whenever opportunity
offers. This wisdom George Stephenson possessed in sufficient degree to
make him feel more ashamed of his ignorance than of the steps necessary
in order to conquer it. Being a diligent and willing scholar, he soon
learnt to read, and by the time he was nineteen he had learnt how to
write also. At arithmetic, a science closely allied to his native
mechanical bent, he was particularly apt, and beat all the other
scholars at the village night school. This resolute effort at
education was the real turning-point in George Stephenson's remarkable
career, the first step on the ladder whose topmost rung led him so high
that he himself must almost have felt giddy at the unwonted elevation.

Shortly after, young Stephenson gained yet another promotion in being
raised to the rank of brakesman, whose duty it was to slacken the
engine when the full baskets of coal reached the top of the shaft.
This was a more serious and responsible post than any he had yet
filled, and one for which only the best and steadiest workmen were ever
selected. His wages now amounted to a pound a week, a very large sum
in those days for a skilled working-man.

Meanwhile, George, like most other young men, had fallen in love. His
sweetheart, Fanny Henderson, was servant at the small farmhouse where
he had taken lodgings since leaving his father's home; and though but
little is known about her (for she unhappily died before George had
begun to rise to fame and fortune), what little we do know seems to
show that she was in every respect a fitting wife for the active young
brakesman, and a fitting mother for his equally celebrated son, Robert
Stephenson. Fired by the honourable desire to marry Fanny, with a
proper regard for prudence, George set himself to work to learn
cobbling in his spare moments; and so successfully did he cobble the
worn