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successfully hauled a model waggon round the room,--the single wheel, placed in front of the engine and working in a swivel frame, enabling it to run round in a circle.
Another experiment was made out of doors, on which occasion, small though the engine was, it fairly outran the speed of its inventor. One night, after returning from his duties at the mine at Redruth, Murdock went with his model locomotive to the avenue leading to the church, about a mile from the town. The walk was narrow, straight, and level. Having lit the lamp, the water soon boiled, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. Shortly after he heard distant shouts of terror. It was too dark to perceive objects, but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries had proceeded from the worthy vicar, who, while going along the walk, had met the hissing and fiery little monster, which he declared he took to be the Evil One in propria persona!
When Watt was informed of Murdock's experiments, he feared that they might interfere with his regular duties, and advised their discontinuance. Should Murdock still resolve to continue them, Watt urged his partner Boulton, then in Cornwall, that, rather than lose Murdock's services, they should advance him 100L.; and, if he succeeded within a year in making an engine capable of drawing a post-chaise carrying two passengers and the driver, at the rate of four miles an hour, that a locomotive engine business should be established, with Murdock as a partner. The arrangement, however, never proceeded any further. Perhaps a different attraction withdrew Murdock from his locomotive experiments. He was then paying attention to a young lady, the daughter of Captain Painter; and in 1785 he married her, and brought her home to his house in Cross Street, Redruth.
In the following year,--September, 1786--Watt says, in a letter to Boulton, "I have still the same opinion concerning the steam carriage, but, to prevent more fruitless argument about it, I have one of some size under hand. In the meantime, I wish William could be brought to do as we do, to mind the business in hand, and let such as Symington and Sadler throw away their time and money in hunting shadows." In a subsequent letter Watt expressed his gratification at finding "that William applies to his business." From that time forward, Murdock as well as Watt, dropped all further speculation on the subject, and left it to others to work out the problem of the locomotive engine. Murdock's model remained but a curious toy, which he took pleasure in exhibiting to his intimate friends; and, though he long continued to speculate about road locomotion, and was persuaded of its practicability, he abstained from embodying his ideas of the necessary engine in any complete working form.
Murdock nevertheless continued inventing, for the man who is given to invent, and who possesses the gift of insight, cannot rest. He lived in the midst of inventors. Watt and Boulton were constantly suggesting new things, and Murdock became possessed by the same spirit. In 1791 he took out his first patent. It was for a method of preserving ships' bottoms from foulness by the use of a certain kind of chemical paint. Mr. Murdock's grandson informs us that it was recently re-patented and was the cause of a lawsuit, and that Hislop's patent for revivifying gas-lime would have been an infringement, if it had not expired.