LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD. 



CHAPTER I. 



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 

 rims 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 pillar set upon a high 

 hill, some eight miles to the eastward of the Gretna 

 ( i iven 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 dis- 

 trict. It looks far over the English border-lands which 

 stretch away towards the south, and marks the entrance 

 to the mountainous parts of the valley which lie to the 

 north. From that point upwards it gradually be- 

 comes narrower, the road winding along the river's 

 banks, in some places high above the stream, dark- 

 brown with peat water, which swiftly rushes over the 

 rocky bed below. A few miles 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 moor- 



