The projectors did not originally contemplate the employment of locomotives. The Act provided for the making and maintaining of tramroads for the passage “of waggons and other carriages” “_with men and horses_ or otherwise,” and a further clause made provision for damages done in course of traffic by the “waggoners.” The public were to be free “to use with horses, cattle and carriages,” the roads formed by the company, on payment of the authorised rates, “between the hours of seven in the morning and six in the evening,” during winter; “between six in the morning and eight in the evening,” in two of the spring and autumn months; and “between five in the morning and ten in the evening,” in the summer months of May, June, July, and August. From this it will be obvious that the projectors of the line had themselves at first no very large conceptions as to the scope of their project. One day, in the spring of 1821, two strangers knocked at the door of Mr. Pease’s house in Darlington; and the message was brought to him that some persons from Killingworth wanted to speak with him. They were invited in, on which one of the visitors introduced himself as Nicholas Wood, viewer at Killingworth, and then turning to his companion, he introduced him as George Stephenson, engine-wright, of the same place. Mr. Pease entered into conversation with his visitors, and was soon told their object. Stephenson had heard of the passing of the Stockton and Darlington Act, and desiring to increase his railway experience, and also to employ in some larger field the practical knowledge he had already gained, he determined to visit the known projector of the undertaking, with the view of being employed to carry it out. He had brought with him his friend Wood, for the purpose at the same time of relieving his diffidence, and supporting his application. Mr. Pease liked the appearance of his visitor: “there was,” as he afterwards remarked when speaking of Stephenson, “such an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district, and described himself as ‘only the engine-wright at Killingworth; that’s what he was.’“