Meanwhile John continued his talk in an easy, off hand sort of way, between bite.
“This Mr Rudyerd, you must know (pass the loaf, Tommy: thank ’ee), is a Cornish man—and fine, straightforward, go-ahead fellows them Cornish men are, though I’m not one myself. Ah, you needn’t turn up your pretty nose, Mrs Potter; I would rather have bin born in Cornwall than any other county in England, if I’d had my choice. Howsever, that ain’t possible now. Well, it seems that Mr Rudyerd is a remarkable sort of man. He came of poor an’ dishonest parents, from whom he runned away in his young days, an’ got employed by a Plymouth gentleman, who became a true father to him, and got him a good edication in readin’, writin’, an’ mathematics. Ah, Tommy, my son, many a time have I had cause for to regret that nobody gave me a good edication!”
“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Mrs Potter, rousing up at this. “You’ve got edication enough for your station in life, and a deal more than most men in the same trade. You oughtn’t for to undervally yourself, John. I’d back you against all your acquaintance in the matter of edication, I would, so don’t talk any more nonsense like that.”
Mrs Potter concluded by emphatically stabbing a potato with her fork, and beginning to peel it.
John smiled sadly and shook his head, but he was too wise a man to oppose his wife on such a point.
“However, Tommy,” he continued, “I’ll not let you have the same regrets in after life, my son: God helping me, you shall have a good; edication. Well, as I was sayin’, John Rudyerd the runaway boy became Mister Rudyerd the silk-mercer on Ludgate Hill, London, and now he’s goin’ to build a noo light’ouse on the Eddystun.”
“He’d do better to mind his shop,” said Mrs Potter.
“He must be a strange man,” observed Tommy, “to be both a silk-mercer and an engineer.”
Tommy was right: Mr Rudyerd was indeed a strange man, for the lighthouse which he ultimately erected on the Eddystone Rock proved that, although not a professional engineer, and although he never attempted any other great work of the kind, he nevertheless possessed engineering talent of the highest order: a fact which must of course have been known to Captain Lovet, the gentleman who selected him for the arduous undertaking.
The corporation of the Trinity House, who managed the lighthouses on the English coast, had let the right to build on the Eddystone, for a period of 99 years, to this Captain Lovet, who appointed Mr Rudyerd to do the work.