With the history of these great improvements is also mixed up the
story of human labour and genius, and of the patience and
perseverance displayed in carrying them out.  Probably one of the
best illustrations of character in connection with the development
of the inventions of the last century, is to be found in the life
of Thomas Telford, the greatest and most scientific road-maker of
his day, to which we proceed to direct the attention of the reader.

Footnotes for Chapter VI.

*[1] 'Observations on Blindness and on the Employment of the other
Senses to supply the Loss of Sight.' By Mr. Bew.--'Memoirs of the
Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,'
vol.i., pp. 172-174.  Paper read 17th April, 1782.

*[2] The pillar was erected by Squire Dashwood in 1751; the lantern
on its summit was regularly lighted till 1788, and occasionally till
1808,, when it was thrown down and never replaced.  The Earl of
Buckingham afterwards mounted a statue of George III. on the top.

*[3] Since the appearance of the first edition of this book, a
correspondent has informed us that there is another lighthouse
within 24 miles of London, not unlike that on Lincoln Heath.  It is
situated a little to the south-east of the Woking station of the
South-western Railway, and is popularly known as "Woking Monument."
It stands on the verge of Woking Heath, which is a continuation of
the vast tract of heath land which extends in one direction as far
as Bagshot.  The tradition among the inhabitants is, that one of the
kings of England was wont to hunt in the neighbourhood, when a fire
was lighted up in the beacon to guide him in case he should be
belated; but the probability is, that it was erected like that on
Lincoln Heath, for the guidance of ordinary wayfarers at night.

*[4] 'Journal of the Agricultural Society of England, 1843.'



LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD.

CHAPTER I. ESKDALE.

[Image] Valley of "the Unblameable Shepherd", Eskdale

Thomas Telford was born in one of the most Solitary nooks of the
narrow valley of the Esk, in the eastern part of the county of
Dumfries, in Scotland.  Eskdale runs north and south, its lower end
having been in former times the western march of the Scottish
border.  Near the entrance to the dale is a tall column erected on
Langholm Hill, some twelve miles to the north of the Gretna Green
station of the Caledonian Railway,--which many travellers to and
from Scotland may have observed,--a monument to the late Sir John
Malcolm, Governor of Bombay, one of the distinguished natives of
the district.  It looks far over the English border-lands, which
stretch away towards the south, and marks the entrance to the
mountainous parts of the dale, which lie to the north.  From that
point upwards the valley gradually contracts, the road winding
along the river's banks, in some places high above the stream,
which rushes swiftly over the rocky bed below.

A few miles upward from the lower end of Eskdale lies the little
capital of the district, the town of Langholm; and there, in the
market-place, stands another monument to the virtues of the Malcolm
family in the statue erected to the memory of Admiral Sir Pulteney
Malcolm, a distinguished naval officer.  Above Langholm, the country
becomes more hilly and moorland.  In many places only a narrow strip
of land by the river's side is left available for cultivation;
until at length the dale contracts so much that the hills descend
to the very road, and there are only to be seen their steep
heathery sides sloping up towards the sky on either hand, and a
narrow stream plashing and winding along the bottom of the valley
among the rocks at their feet.

[Image] Telford's Native District

From this brief description of the character of Eskdale scenery,
it may readily be supposed that the district is very thinly peopled,
and that it never could have been capable of supporting a large
number of inhabitants.  Indeed, previous to the union of the crowns
of England and Scotland, the principal branch of industry that
existed in the Dale was of a lawless kind.  The people living on the
two sides of the border looked upon each other's cattle as their
own, provided only they had the strength to "lift" them.  They were,
in truth, even during the time of peace, a kind of outcasts,
against whom the united powers of England and Scotland were often
employed.  On the Scotch side of the Esk were the Johnstones and
Armstrongs, and on the English the Graemes of Netherby; both clans
being alike wild and lawless.  It was a popular border saying that
"Elliots and Armstrongs ride thieves a';" and an old historian says
of the Graemes that "they were all stark moss-troopers and arrant
thieves; to England as well as Scotland outlawed."  The neighbouring
chiefs were no better: Scott of Buccleugh, from whom the modern
Duke is descended, and Scott of Harden, the ancestor of the
novelist, being both renowned freebooters.

There stands at this day on the banks of the Esk, only a few miles
from the English border, the ruin of an old fortalice, called
Gilnockie Tower, in a situation which in point of natural beauty is
scarcely equalled even in Scotland.  It was the stronghold of a
chief popularly known in his day as Johnnie Armstrong.*[1]  He was a
mighty freebooter in the time of James V., and the terror of his
name is said to have extended as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
between which town and his castle on the Esk he was accustomed to
levy black-mail, or "protection and forbearance money," as it was
called.  The King, however, determining to put down by the strong
hand the depredations of the march men, made a sudden expedition
along the borders; and Johnnie Armstrong having been so ill-advised
as to make his appearance with his followers at a place called
Carlenrig, in Etterick Forest, between Hawick and Langholm, James
ordered him to instant execution.  Had Johnnie Armstrong, like the
Scotts and Kers and Johnstones of like calling, been imprisoned
beforehand, he might possibly have lived to found a British
peerage; but as it was, the genius of the Armstrong dynasty was for
a time extinguished, only, however, to reappear, after the lapse
of a few centuries, in the person of the eminent engineer of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the inventor of the Armstrong gun.

The two centuries and a half which have elapsed since then have
indeed seen extraordinary changes.*[2]  The energy which the old
borderers threw into their feuds has not become extinct, but
survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts
to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their
wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish.
The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in the British
House of Lords.  The descendant of Scott of Harden has achieved a
world-wide reputation as a poet and novelist; and the late Sir
James Graham, the representative of the Graemes of Netherby, on the
English side of the border, was one of the most venerable and
respected of British statesmen.  The border men, who used to make
such furious raids and forays, have now come to regard each other,
across the imaginary line which divides them, as friends and
neighbours; and they meet as competitors for victory only at
agricultural meetings, where they strive to win prizes for the
biggest turnips or the most effective reaping-machines; while the
men who followed their Johnstone or Armstrong chiefs as prickers or
hobilers to the fray have, like Telford, crossed the border with
powers of road-making and bridge-building which have proved a
source of increased civilization and well-being to the population
of the entire United Kingdom.

The hamlet of Westerkirk, with its parish church and school,
lies in a narrow part of the valley, a few miles above Langholm.
Westerkirk parish is long and narrow, its boundaries being the
hill-tops on either side of the dale.  It is about seven miles long
and two broad, with a population of about 600 persons of all ages.
Yet this number is quite as much as the district is able to
support, as is proved by its remaining as nearly as possible
stationary from one generation to another.*[3]  But what becomes of
the natural increase of families?  "They swarm  off!" was the
explanation given to us by a native of the valley.  "If they
remained at home," said he, "we should all be sunk in poverty,
scrambling with each other amongst these hills for a bare living.
But our peasantry have a spirit above that: they will not consent
to sink; they look up; and our parish schools give them a power of
making their way in the world, each man for himself.  So they swarm
off--some to America, some to Australia, some to India, and some,
like Telford, work their way across the border and up to London."

One would scarcely have expected to find the birthplace of the
builder of the Menai Bridge and other great national works in so
obscure a corner of the kingdom.  Possibly it may already have
struck the reader with surprise, that not only were all the early
engineers self-taught in their profession, but they were brought up
mostly in remote country places, far from the active life of great
towns and cities.  But genius is of no locality, and springs alike
from the farmhouse, the peasant's hut, or the herd's shieling.
Strange, indeed, it is that the men who have built our bridges,
docks, lighthouses, canals, and railways, should nearly all have
been country-bred boys: Edwards and Brindley, the sons of small
farmers; Smeaton, brought up in his father's country house at
Austhorpe; Rennie, the son of a farmer and freeholder; and
Stephenson, reared in a colliery village, an engine-tenter's son.
But Telford, even more than any of these, was a purely country-bred
boy, and was born and brought up in a valley so secluded that it
could not even boast of a cluster of houses of the dimensions of a
village.

Telford's father was a herd on the sheep-farm of Glendinning.
The farm consists of green hills, lying along the valley of the Meggat,
a little burn, which descends from the moorlands on the east, and
falls into the Esk near the hamlet of Westerkirk.  John Telford's
cottage was little better than a shieling, consisting of four mud
walls, spanned by a thatched roof.  It stood upon a knoll near the
lower end of a gully worn in the hillside by the torrents of many
winters.

The ground stretches away from it in a long sweeping slope up to
the sky, and is green to the top, except where the bare grey rocks
in some places crop out to the day.  From the knoll may be seen
miles on miles of hills up and down the valley, winding in and out,
sometimes branching off into smaller glens, each with its gurgling
rivulet of peaty-brown water flowing down from the mosses above.
Only a narrow strip of arable land is here and there visible along
the bottom of the dale, all above being sheep-pasture, moors, and
rocks.  At Glendinning you seem to have got almost to the world's end.
There the road ceases, and above it stretch trackless moors,
the solitude of which is broken only by the whimpling sound of the
burns on their way to the valley below, the hum of bees gathering
honey among the heather, the whirr of a blackcock on the wing, the
plaintive cry of the ewes at lambing-time, or the sharp bark of the
shepherd's dog gathering the flock together for the fauld.

[Image] Telford's Birthplace

In this cottage on the knoll Thomas Telford was born on the 9th of
August, 1757, and before the year was out he was already an orphan.
The shepherd, his father, died in the month of November, and was
buried in Westerkirk churchyard, leaving behind him his widow and
her only child altogether unprovided for.  We may here mention that
one of the first things which that child did, when he had grown up
to manhood and could "cut a headstone," was to erect one with the
following inscription, hewn and lettered by himself, over his
father's grave:             "IN MEMORY OF
                              JOHN TELFORD,
                       WHO AFTER LIVING 33 YEARS
                        AN UNBLAMEABLE SHEPHERD,
                          DIED AT GLENDINNING,
                            NOVEMBER, 1757,"

a simple but poetical epitaph, which Wordsworth himself might have
written.

The widow had a long and hard struggle with the world before her;
but she encountered it bravely.  She had her boy to work for, and,
destitute though she was, she had him to educate.  She was helped,
as the poor so often are, by those of her own condition, and there
is no sense of degradation in receiving such help.  One of the
risks of benevolence is its tendency to lower the recipient to the
condition of an alms-taker.  Doles from poor's-boxes have this
enfeebling effect; but a poor neighbour giving a destitute widow a
help in her time of need is felt to be a friendly act, and is alike
elevating to the character of both.  Though misery such as is
witnessed in large towns was quite unknown in the valley, there was
poverty; but it was honest as well as hopeful, and none felt
ashamed of it.  The farmers of the dale were very primitive*[4]
in their manners and habits, and being a warm-hearted, though by no
means a demonstrative race, they were kind to the widow and her
fatherless boy.  They took him by turns to live with them at their
houses, and gave his mother occasional employment.  In summer she
milked the ewes and made hay, and in harvest she went a-shearing;
contriving not only to live, but to be cheerful.

The house to which the widow and her son removed at the Whitsuntide
following the death of her husband was at a place called The Crooks,
about midway between Glendinning and Westerkirk.  It was a thatched
cot-house, with two ends; in one of which lived Janet Telford
(more commonly known by her own name of Janet Jackson) and her son
Tom, and in the other her neighbour Elliot; one door being common to
both.

[Image] Cottage at the Crooks.

Young Telford grew up a healthy boy, and he was so full of fun and
humour that he became known in the valley by the name of "Laughing
Tam."  When he was old enough to herd sheep he went to live with a
relative, a shepherd like his father, and he spent most of his time
with him in summer on the hill-side amidst the silence of nature.
In winter he lived with one or other of the neighbouring farmers.
He herded their cows or ran errands, receiving for recompense his
meat, a pair of stockings, and five shillings a year for clogs.
These were his first wages, and as he grew older they were
gradually increased.

But Tom must now be put to school, and, happily, small though the
parish of Westerkirk was, it possessed the advantage of that
admirable institution, the parish school.  The legal provision made
at an early period for the education of the people in Scotland,
proved one of their greatest boons.  By imparting the rudiments of
knowledge to all, the parish schools of the country placed the
children of the peasantry on a more equal footing with the children
of the rich; and to that extent redressed the inequalities of
fortune.  To start a poor boy on the road of life without
instruction, is like starting one on a race with his eyes bandaged
or his leg tied up.  Compared with the educated son of the rich man,
the former has but little chance of sighting the winning post.

To our orphan boy the merely elementary teaching provided at the
parish school of Westerkirk was an immense boon.  To master this was
the first step of the ladder he was afterwards to mount: his own
industry, energy, and ability must do the rest.  To school
accordingly he went, still working a-field or herding cattle during
the summer months.  Perhaps his own "penny fee" helped to pay the
teacher's hire; but it is supposed that his cousin Jackson defrayed
the principal part of the expense of his instruction.  It was not
much that he learnt; but in acquiring the arts of reading, writing,
and figures, he learnt the beginnings of a great deal.  Apart from
the question of learning, there was another manifest advantage to
the poor boy in mixing freely at the parish school with the sons of
the neighbouring farmers and proprietors.  Such intercourse has an
influence upon a youth's temper, manners, and tastes, which is
quite as important in the education of character as the lessons of
the master himself; and Telford often, in after life, referred with
pleasure to the benefits which he had derived from his early school
friendships.  Among those to whom he was accustomed to look back
with most pride, were the two elder brothers of the Malcolm family,
both of whom rose to high rank in the service of their country;
William Telford, a youth of great promise, a naval surgeon,
who died young; and the brothers William and Andrew Little, the former
of whom settled down as a farmer in Eskdale, and the latter,
a surgeon, lost his eyesight when on service off the coast of Africa.
Andrew Little afterwards established himself as a teacher at
Langholm, where he educated, amongst others, General Sir Charles
Pasley, Dr. Irving, the Custodier of the Advocate's Library at
Edinburgh; and others known to fame beyond the bounds of their
native valley.  Well might Telford say, when an old man, full of
years and honours, on sitting down to write his autobiography,
"I still recollect with pride and pleasure my native parish of
Westerkirk, on the banks of the Esk, where I was born."

[Image] Westerkirk Church and School.

Footnotes for Chapter I.

*[1] Sir Waiter Scott, in his notes to the 'Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border,' says that the common people of the high parts of
Liddlesdale and the country adjacent to this day hold the memory of
Johnnie Armstrong in very high respect.

*[2] It was long before the Reformation flowed into the secluded
valley of the Esk; but when it did, the energy of the Borderers
displayed itself in the extreme form of their opposition to the old
religion.  The Eskdale people became as resolute in their
covenanting as they had before been in their free-booting; the
moorland fastnesses of the moss-troopers becoming the haunts of the
persecuted ministers in the reign of the second James.  A little
above Langholm is a hill known as "Peden's View," and the well in
the green hollow at its foot is still called "Peden's Well"--that
place having been the haunt of Alexander Peden, the "prophet."  His
hiding-place was among the alder-bushes in the hollow, while from
the hill-top he could look up the valley, and see whether the
Johnstones of Wester Hall were coming.  Quite at the head of the
same valley, at a place called Craighaugh, on Eskdale Muir, one
Hislop, a young covenanter, was shot by Johnstone's men, and buried
where he fell; a gray slabstone still marking the place of his rest.
Since that time, however, quiet has reigned in Eskdale, and its
small population have gone about their daily industry from one
generation to another in peace.  Yet though secluded and apparently
shut out by the surrounding hills from the outer world, there is
not a throb of the nation's heart but pulsates along the valley;
and when the author visited it some years since, he found that a
wave of the great Volunteer movement had flowed into Eskdale;
and the "lads of Langholm" were drilling and marching under their
chief, young Mr. Malcolm of the Burnfoot, with even more zeal than
in the populous towns and cities of the south.

*[3] The names of the families in the valley remain very nearly the
same as they were three hundred years ago--the Johnstones, Littles,
Scotts, and Beatties prevailing above Langholm; and the Armstrongs,
Bells, Irwins, and Graemes lower down towards Canobie and Netherby.
It is interesting to find that Sir David Lindesay, in his curious
drama published in 'Pinkerton's Scottish Poems' vol. ii., p. 156,
gives these as among the names of the borderers some three hundred
years since.  One Common Thift, when sentenced to condign
punishment, thus remembers his Border friends in his dying speech:

   "Adew! my bruther Annan thieves,
    That holpit me in my mischeivis;
    Adew! Grosaws, Niksonis, and Bells,
    Oft have we fairne owrthreuch the fells:

    Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis,
    That in our craft hes mony wilis:
    Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges;
    Baileowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis,
    Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis;
    The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis,
    I haf na time to tell your nameis."

Telford, or Telfer, is an old name in the same neighbourhood,
commemorated in the well known border ballad of 'Jamie Telfer of
the fair Dodhead.' Sir W. Scott says, in the 'Minstrelsy,' that
"there is still a family of Telfers.  residing near Langholm , who
pretend to derive their descent from the Telfers of the Dodhead."
A member of the family of "Pylis" above mentioned, is said to have
migrated from Ecclefechan southward to Blackburn, and there founded
the celebrated Peel family.

*[4] We were informed in the valley that about the time of Telford's
birth there were only two tea-kettles in the whole parish of
Westerkirk, one of which was in the house of Sir James Johnstone
of Wester Hall, and the other at "The Burn," the residence of
Mr. Pasley, grandfather of General Sir Charles Pasley.


CHAPTER II.

LANGHOLM--TELFORD LEARNS THE TRADE OF A STONEMASON.

The time arrived when young Telford must be put to some regular
calling.  Was he to be a shepherd like his father and his uncle,
or was he to be a farm-labourer, or put apprentice to a trade?
There was not much choice; but at length it was determined to bind
him to a stonemason.  In Eskdale that trade was for the most part
confined to the building of drystone walls, and there was very
little more art employed in it than an ordinarily neat-handed
labourer could manage.  It was eventually decided to send the
youth--and he was now a strong lad of about fifteen--to a mason at
Lochmaben, a small town across the hills to the westward, where a
little more building and of a better sort--such as of farm-houses,
barns, and road-bridges--was carried on than in his own immediate
neighbourhood.  There he remained only a few months; for his master
using him badly, the high-spirited youth would not brook it, and
ran away, taking refuge with his mother at The Crooks, very much to
her dismay.

What was now to be done with Tom?  He was willing to do anything or
go anywhere rather than back to his Lochmaben master.  In this
emergency his cousin Thomas Jackson, the factor or land-steward at
Wester Hall, offered to do what he could to induce Andrew Thomson,
a small mason at Langholm, to take Telford for the remainder of his
apprenticeship; and to him he went accordingly.  The business
carried on by his new master was of a very humble sort.  Telford,
in his autobiography, states that most of the farmers' houses in the
district then consisted of "one storey of mud walls, or rubble
stones bedded in clay, and thatched with straw, rushes, or heather;
the floors being of earth, and the fire in the middle, having a
plastered creel chimney for the escape of the smoke; while, instead
of windows, small openings in the thick mud walls admitted a scanty
light."  The farm-buildings were of a similarly wretched
description.

The principal owner of the landed property in the neighbourhood was
the Duke of Buccleugh.  Shortly after the young Duke Henry succeeded
to the title and estates, in 1767, he introduced considerable
improvements in the farmers' houses and farm-steadings, and the
peasants' dwellings, as well as in the roads throughout Eskdale.
Thus a demand sprang up for masons' labour, and Telford's master
had no want of regular employment for his hands.  Telford profited
by the experience which this increase in the building operations of
the neighbourhood gave him; being employed in raising rough walls
and farm enclosures, as well as in erecting bridges across rivers
wherever regular roads for wheel carriages were substituted for the
horse-tracks formerly in use.

During the greater part of his apprenticeship Telford lived in the
little town of Langholm, taking frequent opportunities of visiting
his mother at The Crooks on Saturday evenings, and accompanying her
to the parish church of Westerkirk on Sundays.  Langholm was then a
very poor place, being no better in that respect than the district
that surrounded it.  It consisted chiefly of mud hovels, covered
with thatch--the principal building in it being the Tolbooth,
a stone and lime structure, the upper part of which was used as a
justice-hall and the lower part as a gaol.  There were, however,
a few good houses in the little town, occupied by people of the
better class, and in one of these lived an elderly lady, Miss Pasley,
one of the family of the Pasleys of Craig.  As the town was so
small that everybody in it knew everybody else, the ruddyy-cheeked,
laughing mason's apprentice soon became generally known to all the
townspeople, and amongst others to Miss Pasley. When she heard that
he was the poor orphan boy from up the valley, the son of the
hard-working widow woman, Janet Jackson, so "eident" and so
industrious, her heart warmed to the mason's apprentice, and she
sent for him to her house.  That was a proud day for Tom; and when
he called upon her, he was not more pleased with Miss Pasley's
kindness than delighted at the sight of her little library of
books, which contained more volumes than he had ever seen before.

Having by this time acquired a strong taste for reading, and
exhausted all the little book stores of his friends, the joy of the
young mason may be imagined when Miss Pasley volunteered to lend
him some books from her own library.  Of course, he eagerly and
thankfully availed himself of the privilege; and thus, while
working as an apprentice and afterwards as a journeyman, Telford
gathered his first knowledge of British literature, in which he was
accustomed to the close of his life to take such pleasure.
He almost always had some book with him, which he would snatch a
few minutes to read in the intervals of his work; and on winter
evenings he occupied his spare time in poring over such volumes as
came in his way, usually with no better light than the cottage
fire.  On one occasion Miss Pasley lent him 'Paradise Lost,' and he
took the book with him to the hill-side to read.  His delight was
such that it fairly taxed his powers of expression to describe it.
He could only say; "I read, and read, and glowred; then read, and
read again."  He was also a great admirer of Burns, whose writings
so inflamed his mind that at the age of twenty-two, when barely out
of his apprenticeship, we find the young mason actually breaking
out in verse.*[1]  By diligently reading all the books that he could
borrow from friends and neighbours, Telford made considerable
progress in his learning; and, what with his scribbling of "poetry"
and various attempts at composition, he had become so good and
legible a writer that he was often called upon by his less-educated
acquaintances to pen letters for them to their distant friends.
He was always willing to help them in this way; and, the other working
people of the town making use of his services in the same manner,
all the little domestic and family histories of the place soon
became familiar to him.  One evening a Langholm man asked Tom to
write a letter for him to his son in England; and when the young
scribe read over what had been written to the old man's dictation,
the latter, at the end of almost every sentence, exclaimed,
"Capital! capital!" and at the close he said, "Well! I declare,
Tom! Werricht himsel' couldna ha' written a better!"--Wright being
a well-known lawyer or "writer" in Langholm.

His apprenticeship over, Telford went on working as a journeyman at
Langholm, his wages at the time being only eighteen pence a day.
What was called the New Town was then in course of erection,
and there are houses still pointed out in it, the walls of which
Telford helped to put together.  In the town are three arched
door-heads of a more ornamental character than the rest, of Telford's
hewing; for he was already beginning to set up his pretensions as a
craftsman, and took pride in pointing to the superior handiwork
which proceeded from his chisel.

About the same time, the bridge connecting the Old with the New
Town was built across the Esk at Langholm, and upon that structure
he was also employed.  Many of the stones in it were hewn by his
hand, and on several of the blocks forming the land-breast his
tool-mark is still to be seen.

Not long after the bridge was finished, an unusually high flood or
spate swept down the valley.  The Esk was "roaring red frae bank to
brae," and it was generally feared that the new brig would be
carried away.  Robin Hotson, the master mason, was from home at the
time, and his wife, Tibby, knowing that he was bound by his
contract to maintain the fabric for a period of seven years, was in
a state of great alarm.  She ran from one person to another,
wringing her hands and sobbing, "Oh! we'll be ruined--we'll a' be
ruined!" In her distress she thought of Telford, in whom she had
great confidence, and called out, "Oh! where's Tammy Telfer--
where's Tammy?"  He was immediately sent for.  It was evening, and
he was soon found at the house of Miss Pasley.  When he came
running up, Tibby exclaimed, "Oh, Tammy! they've been on the brig,
and they say its shakin'! It 'll be doon!" "Never you heed them,
Tibby," said Telford, clapping her on the shoulder, "there's nae
fear o' the brig.  I like it a' the better that it shakes--
it proves its weel put thegither."  Tibby's fears, however, were not
so easily allayed; and insisting that she heard the brig "rumlin,"
she ran up--so the neighbours afterwards used to say of her--and set
her back against the parapet to hold it together.  At this, it is
said, "Tam bodged and leuch;" and Tibby, observing how easily he
took it, at length grew more calm.  It soon became clear enough
that the bridge was sufficiently strong; for the flood subsided
without doing it any harm, and it has stood the furious spates of
nearly a century uninjured.

Telford acquired considerable general experience about the same
time as a house-builder, though the structures on which he was
engaged were of a humble order, being chiefly small farm-houses on
the Duke of Buccleugh's estate, with the usual out-buildings.
Perhaps the most important of the jobs on which he was employed was
the manse of Westerkirk, where he was comparatively at home.
The hamlet stands on a green hill-side, a little below the entrance
to the valley of the Meggat.  It consists of the kirk, the minister's
manse, the parish-school, and a few cottages, every occupant of
which was known to Telford.  It is backed by the purple moors,
up which he loved to wander in his leisure hours and read the poems
of Fergusson and Burns.  The river Esk gurgles along its rocky bed
in the bottom of the dale, separated from the kirkyard by a steep
bank, covered with natural wood; while near at hand, behind the
manse, stretch the fine woods of Wester Hall, where Telford was
often wont to roam.

[Image] Valley of Eskdale, Westerkirk in the distance.

We can scarcely therefore wonder that, amidst such pastoral
scenery, and reading such books as he did, the poetic faculty of
the country mason should have become so decidedly developed.
It was while working at Westerkirk manse that he sketched the first
draft of his descriptive poem entitled 'Eskdale,' which was published
in the 'Poetical Museum' in 1784.*[2]  These early poetical efforts
were at least useful in stimulating his self-education.  For the
practice of poetical composition, while it  cultivates the
sentiment of beauty in thought and feeling, is probably the best of
all exercises in the art of writing correctly,  grammatically,
and expressively.  By drawing a man out of his ordinary calling, too,
it often furnishes him with a power of happy thinking which may in
after life become a source of the purest pleasure; and this, we
believe, proved to be the case with Telford, even though he ceased
in later years to pursue the special cultivation of the art.

Shortly after, when work became slack in the district, Telford
undertook to do small jobs on his own account such as the hewing of
grave-stones and ornamental doorheads.  He prided himself especially
upon his hewing, and from the specimens of his workmanship which
are still to be seen in the churchyards of Langholm and Westerkirk,
he had evidently attained considerable skill.  On some of these
pieces of masonry the year is carved--1779, or 1780.  One of the
most ornamental is that set into the wall of Westerkirk church,
being a monumental slab, with an inscription and moulding,
surmounted by a coat of arms, to the memory of James Pasley of Craig.
He had now learnt all that his native valley could teach him of the
art of masonry; and, bent upon self-improvement and gaining a
larger experience of life, as well as knowledge of his trade, he
determined to seek employment elsewhere.  He accordingly left
Eskdale for the first time, in 1780, and sought work in Edinburgh,
where the New Town was then in course of erection on the elevated
land, formerly green fields, extending along the north bank of the
"Nor' Loch."  A bridge had been thrown across the Loch in 1769,
the stagnant pond or marsh in the hollow had been filled up,
and Princes Street was rising as if by magic.  Skilled masons were
in great demand for the purpose of carrying out these and the numerous
other architectural improvements which were in progress, and
Telford had no difficulty in obtaining employment.

Our stone-mason remained at Edinburgh for about two years, during
which he had the advantage of taking part in first-rate work and
maintaining himself comfortably, while he devoted much of his spare
time to drawing, in its application to architecture.  He took the
opportunity of visiting and carefully studying the fine specimens
of ancient work at Holyrood House and Chapel, the Castle, Heriot's
Hospital, and the numerous curious illustrations of middle age
domestic architecture with which the Old Town abounds.  He also made
several journeys to the beautiful old chapel of Rosslyn, situated
some miles to the south of Edinburgh, making careful drawings of
the more important parts of that building.

When he had thus improved himself, "and studied all that was to be
seen in Edinburgh, in returning to the western border," he says,
"I visited the justly celebrated Abbey of Melrose."  There he was
charmed by the delicate and perfect workmanship still visible even
in the ruins of that fine old Abbey; and with his folio filled with
sketches and drawings, he made his way back to Eskdale and the
humble cottage at The Crooks.  But not to remain there long.
He merely wished to pay a parting visit to his mother and other
relatives before starting upon a longer journey.  "Having acquired,"
he says in his Autobiography, "the rudiments of my profession,
I considered that my native country afforded few opportunities of
exercising it to any extent, and therefore judged it advisable
(like many of my countrymen) to proceed southward, where industry
might find more employment and be better remunerated."

Before setting out, he called upon all his old friends and
acquaintances in the dale--the neighbouring farmers, who had
befriended him and his mother when struggling with poverty--his
schoolfellows, many of whom were preparing to migrate, like
himself, from their native valley--and the many friends and
acquaintances he had made while working as a mason in Langholm.
Everybody knew that Tom was going south, and all wished him God
speed.  At length the leave-taking was over, and he set out for
London in the year 1782, when twenty-five years old.  He had, like
the little river Meggat, on the banks of which he was born, floated
gradually on towards the outer world: first from the nook in the
valley, to Westerkirk school; then to Langholm and its little
circle; and now, like the Meggat, which flows with the Esk into the
ocean, he was about to be borne away into the wide world.  Telford,
however, had confidence in himself, and no one had fears for him.
As the neighbours said, wisely wagging their heads, "Ah, he's an
auld-farran chap is Tam; he'll either mak a spoon or spoil a horn;
any how, he's gatten a good trade at his fingers' ends."

Telford had made all his previous journeys on foot; but this one he
made on horseback.  It happened that Sir James Johnstone, the laird
of Wester Hall, had occasion to send a horse from Eskdale to a
member of his family in London, and he had some difficulty in
finding a person to take charge of it.  It occurred to Mr. Jackson,
the laird's factor, that this was a capital opportunity for his
cousin Tom, the mason; and it was accordingly arranged that he
should ride the horse to town.  When a boy, he had learnt rough
riding sufficiently well for the purpose; and the better to fit him
for the hardships of the road, Mr. Jackson lent him his buckskin
breeches.  Thus Tom set out from his native valley well mounted,
with his little bundle of "traps" buckled behind him, and, after a
prosperous journey, duly reached London, and delivered up the horse
as he had been directed.  Long after, Mr. Jackson used to tell the
story of his cousin's first ride to London with great glee, and he
always took care to wind up with--"but Tam forgot to send me back
my breeks!"

[Image] Lower Valley of the Meggat, the Crooks in the distance.

Footnotes for Chapter II.

*[1] In his 'Epistle to Mr. Walter Ruddiman,' first published in
'Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine,' in 1779, occur the following lines
addressed to Burns, in which Telford incidentally sketches himself
at the time, and hints at his own subsequent meritorious career;

   "Nor pass the tentie curious lad,
    Who o'er the ingle hangs his head,
    And begs of neighbours books to read;
    For hence arise
    Thy country's sons, who far are spread,
    Baith bold and wise."

*[2] The 'Poetical Museum,' Hawick, p.267.  ' Eskdale' was
afterwards reprinted by Telford when living at Shrewsbury, when he
added a few lines by way of conclusion.  The poem describes very
pleasantly the fine pastoral scenery of the district:--

   "Deep 'mid the green sequester'd glens below,
    Where murmuring streams among the alders flow,
    Where flowery meadows down their margins spread,
    And the brown hamlet lifts its humble head--
    There, round his little fields, the peasant strays,
    And sees his flock along the mountain graze;
    And, while the gale breathes o'er his ripening grain,
    And soft repeats his upland shepherd's strain,
    And western suns with mellow radiance play.
    And gild his straw-roof'd cottage with their ray,
    Feels Nature's love his throbbing heart employ,
    Nor envies towns their artificial joy."

The features of the valley are very fairly described.  Its early
history is then rapidly sketched; next its period of border strife,
at length happily allayed by the union of the kingdoms, under which
the Johnstones, Pasleys, and others, men of Eskdale, achieve honour
and fame.  Nor did he forget to mention Armstrong, the author of the
'Art of Preserving Health,' son of the minister of Castleton, a few
miles east of Westerkirk; and Mickle, the translator of the 'Lusiad,'
whose father was minister of the parish of Langholm; both of whom
Telford took a natural pride in as native poets of Eskdale.


CHAPTER III.

TELFORD A WORKING MASON IN LONDON, AND FOREMAN OF MASONS AT PORTSMOUTH.

A common working man, whose sole property consisted in his mallet
and chisels, his leathern apron and his industry, might not seem to
amount to much in "the great world of London."  But, as Telford
afterwards used to say, very much depends on whether the man has
got a head with brains in it of the right sort upon his shoulders.
In London, the weak man is simply a unit added to the vast floating
crowd, and may be driven hither and thither, if he do not sink
altogether; while the strong man will strike out, keep his head
above water, and make a course for himself, as Telford did.
There is indeed a wonderful impartiality about London.  There the
capable person usually finds his place.  When work of importance is
required, nobody cares to ask where the man who can do it best
comes from, or what he has been, but what he is, and what he can
do.  Nor did it ever stand in Telford's way that his father had been
a poor shepherd in Eskdale, and that he himself had begun his
London career by working for weekly wages with a mallet and chisel.

After duly delivering up the horse, Telford proceeded to present a
letter with which he had been charged by his friend Miss Pasley on
leaving Langholm.  It was addressed to her brother, Mr. John Pasley,
an eminent London merchant, brother also of Sir Thomas Pasley, and
uncle of the Malcolms.  Miss Pasley requested his influence on
behalf of the young mason from Eskdale, the bearer of the letter.
Mr. Pasley received his countryman kindly, and furnished him with
letters of introduction to Sir William Chambers, the architect of
Somerset House, then in course of erection.  It was the finest
architectural work in progress in the metropolis, and Telford,
desirous of improving himself by experience of the best kind,
wished to be employed upon it.  He did not, indeed, need any
influence to obtain work there, for good hewers were in demand; but
our mason thought it well to make sure, and accordingly provided
himself beforehand with the letter of introduction to the architect.
He was employed immediately, and set to work among the hewers,
receiving the usual wages for his labour.

Mr. Pasley also furnished him with a letter to Mr. Robert Adam,*[1]
another distinguished architect of the time; and Telford seems to
have been much gratified by the civility which he receives from
him.  Sir William Chambers he found haughty and reserved, probably
being too much occupied to bestow attention on the Somerset House
hewer, while he found Adam to be affable and communicative.
"Although I derived no direct advantage from either," Telford says,
"yet so powerful is manner, that the latter left the most
favourable impression; while the interviews with both convinced me
that my safest plan was to endeavour to advance, if by slower steps,
yet by independent conduct."

There was a good deal of fine hewer's work about Somerset House,
and from the first Telford aimed at taking the highest place as an
artist and tradesman in that line.*[2]  Diligence, carefulness,
and observation will always carry a man onward and upward; and before
long we find that Telford had succeeded in advancing himself to the
rank of a first-class mason.  Judging from his letters written about
this time to his friends in Eskdale, he seems to have been very
cheerful and happy; and his greatest pleasure was in calling up
recollections of his native valley.  He was full of kind remembrances
for everybody.  "How is Andrew, and Sandy, and Aleck, and Davie?"
he would say; and "remember me to all the folk of the nook."
He seems to have made a round of the persons from Eskdale in or about
London before he wrote, as his letters were full of messages from
them to their friends at home; for in those days postage was dear,
and as much as possible was necessarily packed within the compass
of a working man's letter.  In one, written after more than a
year's absence, he said he envied the visit which a young surgeon
of his acquaintance was about to pay to the valley; "for the
meeting of long absent friends," he added, "is a pleasure to be
equalled by few other enjoyments here below."

He had now been more than a year in London, during which he had
acquired much practical information both in the useful and
ornamental branches of architecture.  Was he to go on as a working
mason? or what was to be his next move? He had been quietly making
his observations upon his companions, and had come to the
conclusion that they very much wanted spirit, and, more than all,
forethought.  He found very clever workmen about him with no idea
whatever beyond their week's wages.  For these they would make every
effort: they would work hard, exert themselves to keep their
earnings up to the highest point, and very readily "strike" to
secure an advance; but as for making a provision for the next week,
or the next year, he thought them exceedingly thoughtless.  On the
Monday mornings they began "clean;" and on Saturdays their week's
earnings were spent.  Thus they lived from one week to another--
their limited notion of "the week" seeming to bound their existence.

Telford, on the other hand, looked upon the week as only one of the
storeys of a building; and upon the succession of weeks, running on
through years, he thought that the complete life structure should
be built up.  He thus describes one of the best of his fellow-workmen
at that time--the only individual he had formed an intimacy with:
"He has been six years at Somerset House, and is esteemed the
finest workman in London, and consequently in England.  He works
equally in stone and marble.  He has excelled the professed carvers
in cutting Corinthian capitals and other ornaments about this
edifice, many of which will stand as a monument to his honour.
He understands drawing thoroughly, and the master he works under
looks on him as the principal support of his business.  This man,
whose name is Mr. Hatton, may be half a dozen years older than
myself at most.  He is honesty and good nature itself, and is
adored by both his master and fellow-workmen. Notwithstanding his
extraordinary skill and abilities, he has been working all this
time as a common journeyman, contented with a few shillings a week
more than the rest; but I believe your uneasy friend has kindled a
spark in his breast that he never felt before." *[3]

In fact, Telford had formed the intention of inducing this
admirable fellow to join him in commencing business as builders on
their own account.  "There is nothing done in stone or marble," he
says, "that we cannot do in the completest manner."  Mr. Robert Adam,
to whom the scheme was mentioned, promised his support, and said he
would do all in his power to recommend them.  But the great
difficulty was money, which neither of them possessed; and Telford,
with grief, admitting that this was an "insuperable bar," went no
further with the scheme.

About this time Telford was consulted by Mr. Pulteney*[4]
respecting the alterations making in the mansion at Wester Hall,
and was often with him on this business.  We find him also writing
down to Langholm for the prices of roofing, masonry, and timber-work,
with a view to preparing estimates for a friend who was building a
house in that neighbourhood.  Although determined to reach the
highest excellence as a manual worker, it is clear that he was
already aspiring to be something more.  Indeed, his steadiness,
perseverance, and general ability, pointed him out as one well
worthy of promotion.

How he achieved his next step we are not informed; but we find him,
in July, 1784, engaged in superintending the erection of a house,
after a design by Mr. Samuel Wyatt, intended for the residence of
the Commissioner (now occupied by the Port Admiral) at Portsmouth
Dockyard, together with a new chapel, and several buildings
connected with the Yard.  Telford took care to keep his eyes open to
all the other works going forward in the neighbourhood, and he
states that he had frequent opportunities of observing the various
operations necessary in the foundation and construction of
graving-docks, wharf-walls, and such like, which were among the
principal occupations of his after-life.

The letters written by him from Portsmouth to his Eskdale
correspondents about this time were cheerful and hopeful, like
those he had sent from London.  His principal grievance was that he
received so few from home, but he supposed that opportunities for
forwarding them by hand had not occurred, postage being so dear as
scarcely then to be thought of.  To tempt them to correspondence he
sent copies of the poems which he still continued to compose in the
leisure of his evenings: one of these was a 'Poem on Portsdown Hill.'
As for himself, he was doing very well.  The buildings were
advancing satisfactorily; but, "above all," said he, "my proceedings
are entirely approved by the Commissioners and officers here--
so much so that they would sooner go by my advice than my master's,
which is a dangerous point, being difficult to keep their good
graces as well as his.  However, I will contrive to manage it"*[5]

The following is his own account of the manner in which he was
usually occupied during the winter months while at Portsmouth Dock:--
"I rise in the morning at 7 (February 1st), and will get up
earlier as the days lengthen until it come to 5 o'clock.
I immediately set to work to make out accounts, write on matters of
business, or draw, until breakfast, which is at 9.  Then I go into
the Yard about 10, see that all are at their posts, and am ready to
advise about any matters that may require attention.  This, and
going round the several works, occupies until about dinner-time,
which is at 2; and after that I again go round and attend to what
may be wanted.  I draw till 5; then tea; and after that I write,
draw, or read until half after 9; then comes supper and bed.  This
my ordinary round, unless when I dine or spend an evening with a
friend; but I do not make many friends, being very particular, nay,
nice to a degree.  My business requires a great deal of writing and
drawing, and this work I always take care to keep under by
reserving my time for it, and being in advance of my work rather
than behind it.  Then, as knowledge is my most ardent pursuit, a
thousand things occur which call for investigation which would
pass unnoticed by those who are content to trudge only in the
beaten path.  I am not contented unless I can give a reason for
every particular method or practice which is pursued.  Hence I am
now very deep in chemistry.  The mode of making mortar in the best
way led me to inquire into the nature of lime.  Having, in pursuit
of this inquiry, looked into some books on chemistry, I perceived
the field was boundless; but that to assign satisfactory reasons
for many mechanical processes required a general knowledge of that
science.  I have therefore borrowed a MS. copy of Dr. Black's
Lectures.  I have bought his 'Experiments on Magnesia and
Quicklime,' and also Fourcroy's Lectures, translated from the
French by one Mr. Elliot, of Edinburgh.  And I am determined to
study the subject with unwearied attention until I attain some
accurate knowledge of chemistry, which is of no less use in the
practice of the arts than it is in that of medicine."  He adds, that
he continues to receive the cordial approval of the Commissioners
for the manner in which he performs his duties, and says, "I take
care to be so far master of the business committed to me as that
none shall be able to eclipse me in that respect."*[6]  At the same
time he states he is taking great delight in Freemasonry, and is
about to have a lodge-room at the George Inn fitted up after his
plans and under his direction.  Nor does he forget to add that he
has his hair powdered every day, and puts on a clean shirt three
times a week.