attend to his favourite animals while working
at the Water-row Pit. Like his father, he used to tempt the
robin-redbreasts to hop and fly about him at the engine-fire, by the bait
of bread-crumbs saved from his dinner. But his chief favourite was his
dog--so sagacious that he almost daily carried George's dinner to him at
the pit. The tin containing the meal was suspended from the dog's neck,
and, thus laden, he proceeded faithfully from Jolly's Close to Water-row
Pit, quite through the village of Newburn. He turned neither to left nor
right, nor heeded the barking of curs at his heels. But his course was
not unattended with perils. One day the big strange dog of a passing
butcher espying the engineman's messenger with the tin can about his
neck, ran after and fell upon him. There was a terrible tussle and
worrying, which lasted for a brief while, and, shortly after, the dog's
master, anxious for his dinner, saw his faithful servant approaching,
bleeding but triumphant. The tin can was still round his neck, but the
dinner had been spilt in the struggle. Though George went without his
dinner that day, he was prouder of his dog than ever when the
circumstances of the combat were related to him by the villagers who had
seen it.

It was while working at the Water-row Pit that Stephenson learnt the art
of brakeing an engine. This being one of the higher departments of
colliery labour, and among the best paid, George was very anxious to
learn it. A small winding-engine having been put up for the purpose of
drawing the coals from the pit, Bill Coe, his friend and fellow-workman,
was appointed the brakesman. He frequently allowed George to try his
hand at the machine, and instructed him how to proceed. Coe was,
however, opposed in this by several of the other workmen--one of whom, a
banksman named William Locke, {26} went so far as to stop the working of
the pit because Stephenson had been called in to the brake. But one day
as Mr. Charles Nixon, the manager of the pit, was observed approaching,
Coe adopted an expedient which put a stop to the opposition. He called
upon Stephenson to "come into the brake-house, and take hold of the
machine." Locke, as usual, sat down, and the working of the pit was
stopped. When requested by the manager to give an explanation, he said
that "young Stephenson couldn't brake, and, what was more, never would
learn, he was so clumsy." Mr. Nixon, however, ordered Locke to go on
with