But what he could not do other men could do and did do. Yes, there were already men of property and standing ready to listen to a new idea. While he worked they talked. As yet unknown to each other, but each by himself clearing the track for a grand junction.
One of these wide-awake men was Mr. Edward Pease, a rich "Friend," of Darlington, who, his friends said, "could look a hundred miles ahead." He needed a quicker and easier transit for his coal from the collieries north of Darlington to Stockton, where they were shipped; and Mr. Pease began to agitate, in his mind, for a railroad. A company for this purpose was formed chiefly of his own friends, whom he fairly talked into it. Scarcely twenty shares were taken by the merchants and shipowners of Stockton, whose eyes were not yet open to the advantage it would by-and-by be to them. A survey of the proposed road was made, when to the indifference of the many was added the opposition of the few. A duke was afraid for his foxes. Shareholders in the turnpikes declared it would ruin their stock. Timid men said it was a new thing, and it was best to let new things alone. The world would never improve much under such counsel. Mr. Pease was hampered on all sides. Nobody convinced him that his first plan was not the right one; but what can a man do in any public enterprise without supporters? So he reluctantly was obliged to give up his railroad, and ask parliament for liberty to build a tramroad—horse-power instead of steam-power; he seemingly could do no better, and even this was obtained only after long delay and at considerable cost.
Among the thousands who carelessly read in the newspapers the passage through parliament of the Stockton and Darlington Act, there was one humble man whose eye kindled as he read it. In his bosom it awakened a profound interest. He went to bed and got up brooding over it. He was hungry to have a hand in it; until at last, yearning with an irrepressible desire to do his own work in the world, he felt he must go forth to seek it.
One night a couple of strangers knocked at the door of Mr. Edward Pease's house in Darlington, and introduced themselves as two Killingworth colliers. One of them handed the master of the mansion a letter of introduction from a gentleman of Newcastle, recommending him as a man who might prove useful in carrying out his contemplated road.
To support the application a friend accompanied him.
The man was George Stephenson, and his friend was Nicholas Wood. It did not take long for Edward Pease to see that Stephenson was precisely the man he wanted.
"A railway, and not a tramroad," said Stephenson, when the subject was fairly and fully opened.
"A horse railway?" asked Mr. Pease.
"A locomotive engine is worth fifty horses," exclaimed Stephenson; and once on the track, he launched out boldly in its behalf.