shillings a week he thought he was "a made man for life," but his
ignoble content was soon disturbed. Always fascinated by
machinery, as he was by birds and animals, he made a pet of his
engines, studying them with a singular fondness, and making
himself master of their principles and their parts. This
knowledge prompted him to learn more, especially to find out
something about the improved engines of Boulton & Watt, of which
rumors had reached the enginemen of the north. To do this he
must learn to read, an art which he seems to have considered
superfluous until he was eighteen. Never did student work harder
than Geordie Stephenson at his new task, amazing his teachers
and his mates by his progress at "the three R's." He was now
brakesman of a hoisting engine, dividing his small leisure
between his studies and his cobblery, for he added to his
earnings by mending shoes. His income was now some ninety pounds
a year. He saved his first guinea and felt himself a rich man.
At twenty-one he married a farmer's house-servant and went to
housekeeping in a cottage at Wellington Quay.

It would be a long story, however interesting, to follow the
young mechanic through the experiences by which he won a name in
all the North Country as the cleverest of "engine doctors,"
eking out his wages by making lasts, mending watches, and even
cutting out coats and trousers for the wives of the pitmen to
sew up for their husbands. His desire to provide his motherless
boy Robert with better schooling than he had enjoyed sharpened
his wits and added strength to his arm. Fortunately the son
proved to be not only an apt scholar, but had the rare gift of
being able to teach others. Whatever he learned in the good
schools to which his father sent him, he imparted to his father.