Being paid good wages, Stephenson contrived, during the year he worked at Montrose, to save a sum of £28, which he took back with him to Killingworth. Longing to get back to his kindred, his heart yearning for the son whom he had left behind, our engineman took leave of his employers, and trudged back to Northumberland on foot as he had gone. While on his journey southward he arrived late one evening, footsore and wearied, at the door of a small farmer’s cottage, at which he knocked, and requested shelter for the night. It was refused, and then he entreated that, being tired, and unable to proceed further, the farmer would permit him to lie down in the outhouse, for that a little clean straw would serve him. The farmer’s wife appeared at the door, looked at the traveller, then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stephenson into the cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer’s family, and spent with them a few pleasant hours. He was hospitably entertained for the night, and when he left the cottage in the morning, he pressed them to make some charge for his lodging, but they refused to accept any recompense. They only asked him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came that way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when Stephenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble pair who had succoured and entertained him on his way; he sought their cottage again, when age had silvered their hair; and when he left the aged couple, they may have been reminded of the old saying that we may sometimes “entertain angels unawares.” Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a serious accident at the Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great distress and poverty. While engaged in the inside of an engine, making some repairs, a fellow-workman accidentally let in the steam upon him. The blast struck him full in the face; he was terribly scorched, and his eyesight was irretrievably lost. The helpless and infirm man had struggled for a time with poverty; his sons who were at home, poor as himself, were little able to help him, while George was at a distance in Scotland. On his return, however, with his savings in his pocket, his first step was to pay off his father’s debts, amounting to about £15; and shortly after he removed the aged pair from Jolly’s Close to a comfortable cottage adjoining the tramroad near the West Moor at Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported entirely by his son.