If one was found who did read, what a centre of light was he! At night the men and boys gathered around him, when, by the light of his engine fire, he would give them the news from an old newspaper, or a scrap of knowledge from some stray magazine, or a wild story from an odd volume; and on these occasions no one listened with more profound attention than George.
Oh! it was so wonderful to read, he thought. It was to open the gates into great fields of knowledge. Read he must. The desire grew upon him stronger and stronger. In the neighbouring hamlet of Welbottle, old Robin Cowens taught an evening school.
"I'll go," cried George.
"And I too," echoed Tommy Musgrove, a fellow-workman, quite carried away by George's enthusiasm.
Now they went to Robin's school three evenings a week. I do not know how it was with Tommy, but old Robin never had a better scholar than George; indeed, he soon outlearned his master! His schooling cost him threepence a week, and, poor as it was, put into his hand the two keys of knowledge, reading and writing.
These mastered, he longs to use them. Andrew Robertson opens an evening school nearer than Welbottle, and Andrew proposes to teach arithmetic, a branch George is anxious to grapple with next. "And he took to figurin' wonderful," said Master Andrew, speaking of his new scholar, who soon left his classmates far behind. And no wonder. Every spare moment to George was more precious than gold dust, and was used accordingly. When not on duty, he sits by his engine and works out his sums. No beer-shop ever enticed him to its cups; no cock-fight ever tempted him to be its spectator. He hated everything low and vulgar.
AT SCHOOL.
Andrew was proud of his pupil, and when George removed to another pit, the old schoolmaster shifted his quarters and followed him. His books did not damage his interest in business. Was the plugman going to stay plugman? No. Bill Coe, a friend of his advanced to be a brakeman, offered to show George. The other workmen objected. And one in particular stopped the working of the engine when George took hold of it; "for," he cried angrily, "Stephenson can't brake, and is too clumsy ever to learn."
A brakeman has charge of an engine for raising coal from a pit. The speed of the ascending coal, brought up in large hazel-wood baskets, is regulated by a powerful wooden brake, acting on the rim of the fly-wheel, which must be stopped just when the baskets reach the settle-board, where they are to be emptied. Brakemen were generally chosen from experienced engine-men of steady habits; and in spite of the grumbling of older colliers, envious perhaps at his rise, it was not long before George learned, and was appointed brakeman at the Dolly Pit. This was in 1801.