CHAP. XXI. STRIKING IN " FAYTHER." 477 



said he, " they used once to call me Geordie Stephen- 

 son ; I'm now called George Stephenson, Esquire, 

 of Tapton House, near Chesterfield. And further let 

 me say, that I've dined with princes, and peers, and 

 commoners with persons of all classes, from the highest 

 to the humblest ; I've made my dinner off a red-herring 

 in a hedge bottom, and gone through the meanest 

 drudgery ; I've seen mankind in all its phases, and the 

 conclusion I have arrived at is that if we're all 

 stripped, there's not much difference." 



His hand was open to his former fellow-workmen 

 whom old age had left in poverty. To poor Eobert 

 Gray, of Newburn, who acted as his bridesman on his 

 marriage to Fanny Henderson, he left a pension for life. 

 He would slip a five-pound note into the hand of a poor 

 man or a widow in such a way as not to offend their 

 delicacy, but to make them feel as if the obligation were 

 all on his side. When Farmer Paterson, who married 

 a sister of George's first wife, Fanny Henderson, died 

 and left a large young family fatherless, poverty stared 

 them in the face. " But ye ken," said our informant, 

 " George struck in fayther for them." And perhaps the 

 providential character of the act could not have been 

 more graphically expressed than in these simple words. 



On his visits to Newcastle, he would frequently meet 

 the friends of his early days, occupying very nearly the 

 same station, while he had meanwhile risen to almost 

 world- wide fame. But he was no less hearty in his 

 greeting of them than if their relative position had 

 continued the same. Thus, one day, after shaking hands 

 with Mr. Brandling on alighting from his carriage, he 

 proceeded to shake hands with his coachman, Anthony 

 Wigham, a still older friend, though he only sat on the 

 box. 



Robert Stephenson inherited his father's kindly spirit 

 and benevolent disposition. He almost worshipped his 

 father's memory, and was ever ready to attribute to him 



