at the magnificent wages of twopence a day, in the village of
Dewley Burn, close by, to which his father had then removed. It
might have seemed at first as though the future railway engineer
was going to settle down quietly to the useful but uneventful life
of an agricultural labourer; for from tending cows he proceeded in
due time (with a splendid advance of twopence) to leading the
horses at the plough, spudding thistles, and hoeing turnips on his
employer's farm. But the native bent of a powerful mind usually
shows itself very early; and even during the days when Geordie was
still stumbling across the freshly ploughed clods or driving the
cows to pasture with a bunch of hazel twigs, his taste for
mechanics already made itself felt in a very marked and practical
fashion. During all his leisure time, the future engineer and his
chum Bill Thirlwall occupied themselves with making clay models of
engines, and fitting up a winding machine with corks and twine like
those which lifted the colliery baskets. Though Geordie Stephenson
didn't go to school at the village teacher's, he was teaching
himself in his own way by close observation and keen comprehension
of all the machines and engines he could come across.

Naturally, to such a boy, the great ambition of his life was to be
released from the hoeing and spudding, and set to work at his
father's colliery. Great was Geordie's joy, therefore, when at
last he was taken on there in the capacity of a coal-picker, to
clear the loads from stones and rubbish. It wasn't a very
dignified position, to be sure, but it was the first step that led
the way to the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway. Geordie was now fairly free from the uncongenial drudgery
of farm life, and able to follow his own inclinations in the
direction of mechanical labour. Besides, was he not earning the