By-and-by he was advanced to driving "the gin-horse," a horse that travels round and round at the pit's mouth drawing up and letting down by means of a rope wound round a drum, baskets of coal or buckets of water, and for this he was paid 8_d._ a day.
Long miles he had to walk every day to and from his work, "a grit-growing lad, with bare legs and feet," and I think we may be sure there was not a bird's nest on that familiar road that the little bird-lover did not know by heart.
His next rise was to a shilling a day. This was a great step up, and for this he had what was called a night shift, lading and unlading the coals as they came to the mouth of the pit, and reversing the rope to go down again. Monotonous enough work it was, but he held on to it for two years. And now another step up was at hand. It was a proud day for the boy--that Saturday afternoon when he was told that his wage had been raised to 12_s._ a week!
"I am a made man now," he exclaimed in great delight.
And now he was seventeen years old. He had really stepped beyond his father both in wage and position. But there was one thing which he had yet to master. It may seem strange to us, but George could neither read nor write. It began to dawn upon him then that things about which he wanted to know--pumps and engines and the great world of mechanics--could only be learned from between the boards of books that were closed to him. But with George to realise an evil was to try at once to mend it. Inside the boy's rough working jacket there beat a manly heart, with a great longing to make the most of his opportunities, to let no chance slip of doing his best.
So he actually went to school at nights--three times a week, spending 3_d._ out of his wages to be taught to read and write. He laboured on and made progress, and in time he wrote and read, and by-and-by he took another step and added to these arithmetic. With marvellous quickness he "caught on" to figures. In the long weary night shifts sitting by the blaze of the fire he would "work" the sums his master had "set" him or write his copies, just as years after, so eager was he to seize every opportunity that offered, he would many a time (in odd moments) chalk his sums on the sides of the coal waggons!