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."