CHAP. II. TELFOHD A JOURNEYMAN MASON. 301 



and glowred ; then read, and read again." He was 

 also a great admirer of Burns, whose writings so in- 

 flamed his mind that at the age of twenty-two, when 

 barely out of his apprenticeship, we find him breaking 

 out in verse. 1 



By diligently reading all such books as he could 

 borrow from friends and neighbours, Telford made con- 

 siderable progress in his learning ; and, what with his 

 scribbling of " poetry " and various attempts at com- 

 position, he had become so good and legible a writer 

 that he was often called upon by his less-educated fel- 

 lows 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 say, Tarn ! Werricht himsel' couldna 

 ha' written a better ! " the said 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 eighteenpence 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 



1 In his * Epistle to Mr. Walter torious career : 



Ruddiman' first published in ' Ruddi- u Nor the tentie curious la(l 



man's \\a-kly Magazine m 1^9, Who o'er the ingle hangs his head, 



occur the following lines addressed to Alld begs of neighbours books to read ; 



Burns, in which ielford incidentally Yor hence arise 



sketches himself at the time, and Thy country's sons, who far are spread, 



hints at his own subsequent meri- Baith bold and wise." 



