In his journeys among the cottagers it had been easy enough to see that the yarn could not be made quickly enough for the weaver, that though in thousands of cottages the "one-thread machine" turned from morning till night and again from night till morning, it could not keep pace with the shuttle. What was wanted was a dozen, fifty, a hundred threads to be made by a single pair of hands. Did he perhaps see dimly even then that he was to be the man who should throw out the old-fashioned hand-wheel?
One day he noticed a red-hot bar of iron become elongated as it passed between two iron rollers. In that instant he first saw dimly the tiny seedling that was to grow one day to the mighty tree of the spinning-frame. The idea lodged in his brain and took firm hold of him.
In outward appearance at this time Arkwright was in no way specially attractive or remarkable, but genius is not always outwardly beautiful, and "there were notions in that rough head of his" that were one day to alter England.
But Arkwright was no practical mechanic, and so he called in help from outside--from one Kay, a clockmaker in Warrington, and under his directions Kay made rollers and wheels, and shortly Arkwright had his models ready to hand. Meantime, while his heart beat high with hope and exultation, his pet models being always in his mind though for bread and butter he still made wigs and shaved chins, he received a sudden and unexpected check. His wife--for he was already married--chafing in secret over what she considered his fantastic imaginings and idle dreamings, made up her mind to destroy that which distracted his mind from the business of shaving and money-making. As the surest means to her end she burned his models one day when he was out of the way. Poor Arkwright returned and discovered the mischief. In an instant his whole stubborn nature was up in arms. Indeed, so wrathful was he that he would from that day have nothing more to do with his wife, and the two separated.
And now the great question was--how best to push the new model Kay had made. Poverty handicapped him sadly. It was impossible to push anything without money. He cast about in his mind where the money was to come from, and settled on an old friend in Preston, "a liquor merchant and painter" (probably a house-painter). To Preston he took his way. The friend consented to help him, and together with high hopes and great rejoicing he and Kay set up their model. But their secrecy had roused suspicion. Behind this friend's house there happened to be a closed-in garden with a number of gooseberry bushes. Close by in a neighbouring cottage lived two old ladies. At nights they declared they heard a strange humming noise among the bushes, as if the devil himself were making music, tuning up his bagpipes for Arkwright and Kay to dance a reel! The story got abroad. The people of Preston, excited and curious, were eager to break into the house and discover if Arkwright and Kay were indeed in league with the Evil One.