From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit, George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of manual labour, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade of a higher class workman. But he had not ceased to be a worker, though he employed his industry in a different way. It might, indeed, be inferred that he had now the command of greater leisure; but his spare hours were as much as ever given to work, either necessary or self-imposed. So far as regarded his social position, he had already reached the summit of his ambition; and when he had got his hundred a year, and his dun galloway to ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When Robert Whetherly offered to give him an old gig, his travelling having so much increased of late, he accepted it with great reluctance, observing, that he should be ashamed to get into it, “people would think him so proud.” When the High Pit had been sunk, and the coal was ready for working, Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of the pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton Colliery, both of which proved quite successful. Amongst other works of this time, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity which fell towards the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had officiated as brakesman; and he so arranged it, that the full waggons descending drew the empty waggons up the railroad. This was one of the first self-acting inclines laid down in the district. Stephenson had now much better opportunities than hitherto for improving himself in mechanics. His familiar acquaintance with the steam-engine proved of great value to him. His shrewd insight, and his intimate practical acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult combinations. The practical study which he had given to it when a workman, and the patient manner in which he had groped his way through all the details of the machine, gave him the power of a master in dealing with it as applied to colliery purposes. Sir Thomas Liddell was frequently about the works, and took pleasure in giving every encouragement to the engine-wright in his efforts after improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already closely occupying Stephenson’s attention; although it was still regarded as a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had at an early period detected its practical value, and formed an adequate conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it; and he now bent his entire faculties to the development of its extraordinary powers. [Picture: Colliers’ Cottages at Long Benton] CHAPTER V. EARLY HISTORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—GEORGE STEPHENSON BEGINS ITS IMPROVEMENT.