'Puffing Billy' And The Prize 'Rocket' Part 4

Indeed, he had to take with him a body-guard to defend them. Much of the surveying had to be done by stealth, when people were at dinner, or with a dark lantern at night.

When dukes and lords headed the hostility, you cannot wonder that their dependents carried it on. One gentleman declared he would rather meet a highwayman or see a burglar on his premises than an engineer; and of the two cla.s.ses, he thought the former the most respectable!

Widows complained of damaged corn-fields, and gardeners of their violated strawberry beds; and though Stephenson well knew that in many cases not a whit of damage had been done, he paid them for fancied injuries in hope of stopping their tongues.

A survey made under such circ.u.mstances must needs have been imperfect, but it was as good as could be made. And no time was lost in taking measures to get a bill before parliament.

A storm of opposition against railways suddenly arose, and spread over every corner of the kingdom. Newspapers and pamphlets swarmed with articles crying them down. Ca.n.a.l and turnpike owners spared no pains to crush them. The most extraordinary stories were set afloat concerning their dangers. Boilers would burst, and pa.s.sengers be blown to atoms. Houses along the way would be burnt; the air would become black with smoke and poisoned with cinders, and property on the road be stripped of its value.

The Liverpool and Manchester bill, however, got into parliament, and went before a committee of the House of Commons to decide upon it, in March, 1825.

First its friends had to show the _necessity_ of some new mode of travel between the two cities, and that it was not difficult to do.

But when it came to asking for liberty to build a railway and run a locomotive, the matter was more difficult to manage. And to face the tremendous opposition leagued against it, the courage of its friends was severely tried.

The battle had to be fought inch by inch.

Stephenson of course was the chief witness for locomotives. But what headway could he, an uneducated Northumbrian mechanic, make against members of parliament, backed by all the chief engineers of the kingdom. For very few had faith in him; but those few had strong faith. He was examined and cross-examined. They tried to bully him, to puzzle him, to frighten him. On the subject of locomotives his answers were clear. He declared he could drive an engine, and drive it safely, at the rate of twelve miles an hour!

"Who can believe what is so notoriously in the teeth of all experience?" cried the opposition; "the witness is a madman!"

Famous engineers were called as witnesses. What had _they_ to say? One declared the scheme a most wild one. He had no confidence in locomotives. They were affected by the wind, the weather; with difficulty were kept on the track, and were liable to constant accidents; indeed, a gale of wind would render it impossible to start a locomotive, either by poking the fire or keeping up the steam till the boiler should burst: they could never be relied on.

The proposed route had to cross an ugly quagmire, several miles in extent, called Chat Moss, a very shaky piece of land, no doubt; and here the opposition took a strong stand. "No engineer in his senses,"

cried one, "would think of going through Chat Moss. No carriage could stand on the Moss short of the bottom."

"It is absurd to hold out the notion that locomotives can travel twice as fast as stage-coaches," says another; "one might as soon trust himself to a rocket as to the mercy of a machine going at that rate."

"Carriages cannot go at anything like that speed," added another; "if driven to it, the wheels would only spin on their axles like a top, and the carriages would stand stock-still!"

So much for learned arguments against it.

Then came the dangers of it. The dumb animals would never recover from the sight of a locomotive; cows would not give their milk; cattle could not graze, or horses be driven along the track, cried the opposition.

"As to that," said Stephenson, "come to Killingworth and see. More quiet and sensible beasts cannot be found in the kingdom. The farmers _there_ never complain."

"Well," asked one of them, "suppose, now, one of those engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not _that_, think you, be a very awkward circ.u.mstance?"

"Yes," answered Stephenson, with a droll twinkle in his eye, "very awkward indeed--_for the coo_!"

The inquirer, as you may suppose, was silent.

The danger in other respects was thus dwelt on: "In addition to the smoke and the noise, the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines make going at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and filling the cattle with dismay, what," asked an honourable member, "is to be done with all those who have advanced money in making and mending turnpikes? What with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fas.h.i.+on of their forefathers? What is to become of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and workmen, innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Iron would be raised one hundred per cent., or more probably exhausted altogether. The price of coal would be ruinous. Why, a railroad would be the greatest nuisance, the biggest disturbance of quiet and comfort, in all parts of the kingdom, that the ingenuity of man could invent."

Not content with decrying his engine, they could not stop short of abusing Stephenson himself. "He is more fit for Bedlam than anywhere else," they cried; "he never had a plan, he is not capable of making one. Whenever a difficulty is pressed, as in the case of a tunnel, he gets out of it at one end; and when you try to catch him at that, he gets out at the other."

"We protest," they said, "against a measure supported by such evidence and founded upon such calculations. We protest against the Exchange of Liverpool striding across the land of this country. It is despotism itself."

What had the friends of steam-power to say?

"We beseech you," they pleaded to the committee, "not to crush it in its infancy. Let not this country have the disgrace of putting a stop to that which, if cherished, may in the end prove of the greatest advantage to our trade and commerce. We appeal to you in the name of the two largest towns in England--we appeal to you in the name of the country at large--and we implore you not to blast the hopes that this powerful agent, steam, may be called in aid for the purpose of land communication; only let it have a fair trial, and these little objections will be done away."

Flaws were picked in the surveys, and the estimate of costs based on them. The surveys, quite likely, were imperfect; indeed, how could they be otherwise, when every mile of the line had to be done at the risk of their necks?

The battle lasted two months, and a very exciting one it was. It was skilfully and powerfully carried on. Who beat?

_The opposition._ The bill was lost.

Matters looked dark enough. Judging from appearances the enterprise was laid on the shelf, and the day of railways long put off. As for poor Stephenson, his short day of favour seemed about gone. His being called a madman and regarded as a fool, as he had been by the opposition, was not without its effect upon his newly-made friends.

Their faith in him sensibly cooled. But he did not lose faith in himself, not he. He had waited long for the triumph of his engine, and he could wait longer. A great blessing to the nation was locked up in it he well knew, and the nation would have it some time, in spite of everything.

Was the enterprise a second time to be abandoned? No, no. Taking breath, its friends again started on their feet. Never give up, was their motto, for they were in earnest. They rallied, and met in London to consult what to do next.

Mr. Huskisson, a member of parliament for Liverpool, came into the meeting and urged them to try again--to try at the next session of parliament.

"Parliament must in the end grant you an act," he said, "if you are determined to have it." And try they determined to, for a horse railroad at least.

For this purpose another and more careful survey had to be made.

Stephenson was left out. A _known_ man must be had. They meant to get surveyors and engineers with well-established reputations to back them up, Stephenson was too little known. He had no fame beyond a little circle in one corner of the kingdom. How did he feel to be thus thrown in the background? George was not a man to grumble; he was too n.o.ble to complain. In fact, you see, he was ahead of the times--too far ahead to be understood and appreciated. He could afford to wait.

Two brothers by the name of Rennie were appointed in his stead. In time the new survey was finished, the plans drawn, and the expense reckoned up. Changes were made in the route. Ill-tempered land-owners were left on one side, and every ground of complaint avoided that could be.

The new bill was then carried to parliament, and went before the committee in March the next year. The opposition was strong indeed, but less furious. Much of its bitterness was gone. It made a great show of fears, which the advocates of the bill felt it was not worth while to waste words in answering. They left it to the road to answer them. Build it, and see.

Mr. Huskisson and others supported it in a strong and manly tone, and after a third reading the bill pa.s.sed in the House of Commons. So far so good. It then had to go to the House of Lords. What would befall it there? The same array of evidence on both sides was put forward. The poor locomotive engine, which had proved such a bugbear in the House of Commons, was regarded as quite a harmless affair by most of the lords; and the opposition made such poor work in showing off its dangers that no plea in its behalf was called for. They were satisfied, they said, and the bill pa.s.sed almost unanimously, Victory!

Victory!

The victory cost more than four thousand five pound bank-notes! For a first cost it looked large. But nothing worth doing can be done without effort, and effort made _on faith_. Nothing done, nothing have.

CHAPTER VII.

GRAPPLING WITH DIFFICULTIES--THE BOG--A PUZZLE--THE PRIZE OFFER.

The real work was now to be done. Hopes and fears had yet to be verified.

At the first meeting of the directors, a man to put the enterprise through was to be chosen. Who? The Rennies were anxious to get the appointment. They naturally expected it. They had made the survey, and their name had had weight in getting the Act of Parliament. But they could not superintend the details of the work. They had other enterprises on foot.

Stephenson, no doubt, was _the_ man. The directors felt him to be so.

No one could long be with him without feeling his power. Besides, what he had done had been ably done. At the risk of offending the Rennies and their friends, they chose him, and the result proved the wisdom of their choice.

On receiving the appointment, he immediately moved to Liverpool, and the work began in good earnest. It was a stupendous undertaking for those days. Chat Moss had to be filled in, sixty-three bridges built, excavations made, tunnels erected, and all the practical details carried out, with very little past experience to profit by. Neither was the kind of labour well understood, nor was there that division of labour between contractors and engineers which relieves one man of too heavy a responsibility. In fact, both tools and men had to be made, and Stephenson had to do it.

The great quagmire was first grappled with. "No man in his senses would undertake to make a road over Chat Moss," opposers said in parliament: "That was to undertake the impossible." Stephenson, however, meant to try. Formidable it certainly was. Cattle ploughing on farms bordering the bog, where it ran underneath the tilled land, had to wear flat-soled boots in order to keep their hoofs from sinking down into the soft soil.

The proposed route ran four miles across it, and the way had to be drained and filled in with sand and gravel. The drainage tasked their ingenuity to the utmost, and almost baffled the workmen. After that was in some degree accomplished, waggon after waggonful of earth was thrown on for weeks and weeks, and it only sank into the mire and disappeared--not an inch of solid footing seemed gained; and on they went, filling and filling, without apparently having made the least impression on the Moss: the greedy bog only cried out for more.