CHAP. III. AS FOREMAN OF MASONS. 315 



the same time he states he is taking great delight in 

 Freemasonry, and is about to have a lodge-room at 

 the George Inn fitted up after his plans and under 

 his direction. Nor does he forget to add that he has 

 his hair powdered every day, and puts on a clean shirt 

 three times a week. The Eskdale mason is evidently 

 getting on, as he deserves. Yet he says that " he 

 would rather have it said of him that he possessed one 

 grain of good nature or good sense than shine the finest 

 puppet in Christendom." " Let my mother know that 

 I am well," he writes to Andrew Little, " and that I 

 will print her a letter soon." i For it was a practice of 

 this good son, down to the period of his mother's 

 death, no matter how much burdened he was with 

 business, to set apart occasional times for the careful 

 penning of a letter in printed characters, that she might 

 be the more easily able to decipher it with her old and 

 dimmed eyes by her cottage fireside at The Crooks. 

 As a mail's real disposition usually displays itself most 

 strikingly in small matters like light, which gleams 

 the most brightly when seen through narrow chinks it 

 will probably be admitted that this trait, trifling though 

 it may appear, was truly characteristic of the simple and 

 affectionate nature of the hero of our story. 



The buildings at Portsmouth were finished by the end 

 of 1786, when Telford's duties at that place being at an 

 end, and having no engagement beyond the termination 

 < >f the contract, he prepared to leave, and began to look 

 about him for other employment. 



1 Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Portsmouth Dockyard, 

 Feb. 1, 1786. 



