KETURN TO KILLINGWORTH. 



CHAP. IV. 



was drawn up without any admixture of sand, and the 

 difficulty was thus conquered. 1 



During his short stay, being paid good wages, 

 Stephenson contrived to save a sum of 28/., which he 

 took back with him to Killingworth, after an absence 

 of about a year. Longing to get back to his own kin- 

 dred, his heart yearning for his son whom he had left 

 behind, our engine-man took leave of his Montrose 

 employers, and trudged back to Killingworth on foot 

 as he had gone. He related to his friend Coe, on his 

 return, that when on the borders of Northumberland, 

 late one evening, footsore and wearied with his long 

 day's journey, he knocked at a small farmer's cottage 

 door, and requested shelter for the night. It was re- 

 fused, and then he entreated that, being sore tired and 

 unable to proceed any further, they 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 " would not hear of such a thing." They asked 

 him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came that 

 way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when 



1 This incident was related by Ro- 

 bert Stephenson during a voyage to 

 the north of Scotland in 1857, when 

 off Montrose, on board his yacht Ti- 

 tania ; and the reminiscence was im- 

 mediately communicated to the author 

 by the late Mr. William Kell of Gates- 

 head, who was present, at Mr. Stephen- 

 son's request, as being worthy of inser- 

 tion in his father's biography. Mr. 

 George Elliott, one of the most skilled 



coal- viewers in the North, was of the 

 party, and expressed his admiration at 

 the ready skill with which the diffi- 

 culty had been overcome, the expe- 

 dient of the boot being then unknown 

 in the Northumberland and Durham 

 mines. He acknowledged it to be 

 " a wrinkle," adding that its applica- 

 tion would, in several instances within 

 his own knowledge, have been of great 

 practical value. 



