hospitable occupant of the cottage. This article of furniture is a high strong-built cheffonier, with a book-case surmounting it, and it was placed in the apartment by George Stephenson himself. Of this chattel mention will be made elsewhere in these pages.

The view from the little garden, in front of this cabin, is as fine as any in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. A roadway leading to the North Shields turnpike road runs along the garden rails; on the other side of the road is a small paddock, not a hundred yards in width, beyond the farther confine of which are the mud walls of the glebe farmhouse, of which George Stephenson's friend Wigham was tenant. On the right hand, buried in trees, is Gosforth Hall, formerly the residence of the Mr. Brandling who fought George's battle in the matter of the safety lamp, and whose name-though he has long been dead — is never mentioned by the inhabitants of the district without some expression of affectionate regard. Newcastle cannot be seen; but clearly visible is the blue-hill ridge beyond it, on the farther decline of which rests the seat of the Liddells-Ravensworth Castle.

The excitement of moving to Killingworth was for a time beneficial to Mrs. Stephenson's health. She became more cheerful; and, that she might have every chance of amendment, George Stephenson prevailed on her to visit her sister Elizabeth, who had married Thomas Pattison, a farmer of Black Callerton.

This apparent improvement in health, which her husband attributed altogether to the excitement of moving to a new home, was, however, little more than the ordinary consequence of pregnancy, which is well known to stay for a brief space the treacherous incursions of

1806.]

DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.

15

phthisical malady. In the July of 1805 she was put to bed, and Robert Stephenson had a sister who lived just three weeks *-long enough to be named Frances after her mother, to be admitted into Christ's Church, and to taste something of human suffering. Her little girl born, dead, and buried, the bereaved mother relapsed into her previous condition. The cold winter and spring, with its keen north-eastern winds sweeping over the country, completed the slow work of consumption, and before Benton banks and Jesmond vale had again put forth their green leaves, she was quiet in her last earthly rest in Benton churchyard.

Deprived of his mother, before he had completed his third year, Robert Stephenson was placed under the care of the women who were successively George's housekeepers. Of the three housekeepers who lived in the West Moor cabin, the first and last were superior women. Soon after the death of his wife, George Stephenson went for a few months to Scotland, where he was employed as engineer in a large factory near Montrose. On making this journey, he left little Robert in the custody of his first housekeeper, at Killingworth. On his return he was surprised, and slightly angry, at finding his house shut up, and without inmates. In his absence, the housekeeper (who was in every respect an excellent woman) had become the wife of his

* The Long Benton registers contain the following entries :

1. Frances Stephenson, West Moor Colliery, d. of George Stephenson and Frances his wife, late Henderson. Died Aug. 3, 1805. Buried Aug. 4.

Aged 3 weeks.

2. Buried 1806, Frances Stephenson, late Henderson, West Moor, wife of George Stevenson (sic). Died May 14. Buried May 16. Aged 37 years,

brother Robert, in whose dwelling the little boy then was. Recovering possession of his child, George Stephenson again established himself at the West Moor, engaged a second housekeeper, and, having well-nigh emptied his pockets by paying some debts of his poor blind father, and by purchasing a substitute for service in the militia, once more set to work resolutely as brakesman, cobbler, and clock-cleaner. The burden of an invalid wife, of which he had been relieved, was replaced by the burden of a helpless father. Struck blind by an accident which has been already mentioned, Old Robert' was maintained in comfort by his sons until the time of his death.

George's second selection of a housekeeper was not so fortunate as his first, but he soon dismissed her, and received into his cottage his sister Eleanor, or, as her name is spelt in the family register, Elender. This worthy and pious woman, born on April 16, 1784, was nearly three years the junior of her brother, and consequently was still young when she came to keep his house. But young as she was, she had made acquaintance with sorrow. A merry lass, she went up to London to fill a place of domestic service, having first plighted her troth to a young man in her own rank of life, under a promise to return and become his bride whenever he wished to marry her. A year or two passed, when, in accordance with this agreement, her lover summoned her back to Northumberland. Eleanor went on board a Newcastle vessel homeward bound. Ill-fortune sent adverse breezes. The passage from the Thames to the Tyne consumed three weeks, and when the poor girl placed her foot on the quay side of

1806.]

'THE ARTIFICIALS.'

17

the Northumbrian capital, the first piece of intelligence she received was that her faithless lover was already the husband of another.

George Stephenson invited his sister to his house, and she, seeing a field of usefulness before her, wisely accepted the invitation. Her sister Ann having already married, and migrated to the United States, Eleanor was to George as an only sister.

The record of one trifling but pathetic difference between George and Eleanor is still preserved by family gossip. When Eleanor first took up her abode at the West Moor colliery, she wore some cheap artificial flowers in her bonnet. The sad experiences of the four preceding years had made the young brakesman less gentle in his temper and more practical in his views. Rude love of truth and dislike of shams caused him to conceive a dislike for these artificials,' as he contemptuously termed them. He asked Eleanor to throw them away, but she, averring that they cost good money, declined to do so.

6

Nay, then,' said George, stretching out his hand, 'let me take them out and throw them away, and I'll give thee a shilling.'

But Eleanor, usually so meek and gentle, drew back. George saw her secret and blundered out an apology. The poor girl had put those flowers in her bonnet, in the vain hope that they would render her comely face more acceptable to her false lover. She had been rightly punished for what she called her worldly vanity; and in humble acknowledgment of her error, she determined to wear the artificials' as a memorial of her foolishness.

From her early days she had been seriously inclined;

and her recent disappointment gave a tone to her mind that was not to be outgrown. Joining the Wesleyan Methodists, she regularly attended their prayer-meetings; and all who remember her bear witness that her labours of unassuming charity aptly enforced the teaching of her lips. Her spare hours were employed in visiting the sick, and repeating long passages from the Bible to those who were themselves unable to spell out the secrets of 'the Word.'

It was a bright day for little Robert when this young woman entered the cottage at the West Moor, and took him into her affectionate keeping. The best and most pleasant glimpses that can be obtained of his childhood, show the healthiest relations to have subsisted between him and this good aunt.

Every few months Aunt Nelly used to take the child to visit his various relatives scattered about the country. Ann Henderson had become the wife of Joseph Burn of the Red House farm, Wolsingham. She had done better had she been content with the poor young brakesman ; but she was for a time the most important personage in the family. She had a strong feeling of kindliness for George, and when her sister Fanny was no more, she was constant in her hospitality to her nephew. A visit to Wolsingham was the child's highest ideal of happiness; and when he was there he used to repay his relations for their goodness by mimicking the peculiarities of his Killingworth acquaintance. Aunt Burn was in the habit. of giving the little fellow, for his breakfast, fresh eggs with butter in them. This luxurious fare, so unlike what he was accustomed to in his father's cottage, appeared to him in the light of a strange and important discovery,