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, takingrefuge 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" target="_blank" title="n.学徒工身份">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" target="_blank" title="n.学徒工身份">apprenticeship Telford lived in the
little town of Langholm, takingfrequent 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" target="_blank" title="n.学徒工身份">apprenticeship, we find the young mason actually breaking
out in verse.*[1] By diligentlyreading 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-knownlawyer or "writer" in Langholm.
His apprenticeship" target="_blank" title="n.学徒工身份">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 ornamentalcharacter 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.