Читать книгу: «The Making of William Edwards; or, The Story of the Bridge of Beauty», страница 13

Of course this was an experiment on too small a scale for commercial success. At all events William Edwards had mastered the great problem how to utilise anthracite or stone-coal for the smelting of iron. It was there burning without smoke or flame, and pouring out a thin stream of molten metal into the sandy moulds which shaped it into bars, or pig-iron.

Mr. Morris clapped his hand on William's shoulder, and congratulated him on his achievement.

'Now, Edwards,' said he, 'you must lose no time in putting up another furnace or two on a larger scale. Let us show the world what genius and perseverance can accomplish.'

'Yes, yes, sir; but I should like to improve on that,' pointing to what he had already done. 'And before building a larger furnace, I shall have to consider how the greater blast is to be sustained. It would be too heavy a task for manual labour if we are to keep large quantities of this hard coal at fusing heat for corresponding heaps of ore,' was the proud young fellow's reply.

'No doubt, no doubt,' acquiesced Mr. Morris. 'But you will be certain to manage it in some way or other. And you know you are free to employ any workmen or materials you think best. Oh yes; when you set your foot on a difficulty you are sure to tread it down.'

'Indeed and in truth, sir, I'm not willing to be beaten, and I don't mean to give in till I've conquered the obstacles here, look you,' said he, with set and resolute face.

How he overcame the mechanical difficulty I have no data to determine after this lapse of time; but I incline to think he brought his friend Thomas Williams to construct a wheel, moved either by horse or water power, to supply the leverage required to keep the monster forge-bellows in motion. Twenty years later Smeaton invented the blowing machine for the Carron Foundry, in Scotland; but William Edwards was a mason and architect, not a mechanical engineer; and when he had completed his large furnace, capable of smelting with the hard stone-coal, he had achieved a victory likely to revolutionise the mining and iron-founding industries of South Wales – nay, almost to create them. He had saved its forest trees from utter annihilation. He had paved the way for Smeaton's feet to tread.

Another furnace rose. The ironworks of John Morris extended and found occupation and bread for hundreds of workpeople besides those employed by himself. Fresh mines of coal and iron were opened around Castel Coch and elsewhere. Whole teams of pack-horses, tended by women and boys, were ever on the roads, bringing rough ore and coal to the smelters, the tinkling bell of each leader, or bell-horse, ringing a prophetic note of progression. It was some time before the invention of a low, broad-wheeled waggon, drawn by four or six horses, set these old teams aside; not, indeed, until something had been done to make the roads more practicable. And long before that, fresh shipping sought the old Cardiff quays to transport the pig-iron to final manufacturers alike in England and across the seas. Morris' smelting works seemed to have wakened the stagnant town from the lethargy of ages.

All this was not the growth of a year or two. Eight full years was William Edwards working for Mr. Morris, and, whether consciously or not, for the advancement and prosperity of his country. Not alone was he occupied in erecting furnaces. Fresh workmen and their families required fresh homes, and who but William Edwards had the building? And for the period they were models. His name and fame as a builder travelled farther than his own feet.

Yet it is not to be supposed that he stood still to let the stream of progress pass him by, now that he had opened the floodgates wide.

Relays of men fed and tended the glowing furnaces night and day. The proud young architect and his contingent did their masonry in daylight hours.

That did not mean inert repose or dissipation for him. He made holiday when his trial furnace was complete, to visit his mother and brothers and take part in his sister Jonet's wedding; but his brain was actively at work the whole time, and it was even on that busy occasion he set the bridegroom's mechanical brains at work also for mutual benefit.

And whenever there was an interval between one great piece of work and another, he hired a horse and went home for a day or two, never without some useful or rare gifts for one and all, and never without calling on his old friends Robert Jones and Evan Evans by the way.

Those were his only respites from work. His manual labour – for he worked alongside his men, and allowed no scamping or shirking – was over at dusk. But no sooner had he laid aside his tools, and washed away the tokens of his occupation, than he had a book in his hand – generally an English book, which he was doing his best to decipher unaided at his meals, as a preparation for private lessons, which the blind man gave to him by the household hearth, or in his bakehouse, or along with the adult class assembling twice a week in his upstairs parlour for English reading.

In the bakehouse Rosser kept an alphabet, the separate letters of which were shaped and baked out of ordinary dough. And when the eager student had mastered the English pronunciation of these, which the blind man could distinguish by the touch, he traced syllables and words in his plastic medium, until ere long a well-known and well-thumbed book was put into the learner's hands to be spelt out, or read aloud, as he progressed.

The blind baker was proud of his pupil.

'You are the most promising scholar I ever took in hand,' said he; 'but your diligence is unremitting, and failure is impossible.'

Yes, so diligent was he that in consequence of his absorption in his new study, Elaine Parry's shyness in his presence gradually wore away, and when she heard him stumbling over a word, she would pronounce it for him involuntarily, without so much as looking up from her sewing or knitting.

Nay, the bashfulness became rather on his side at the betrayal of his own ignorance to a young girl, capable, through superior education, of correcting his slips and errors. But very soon he accepted her verbal hints as a matter of course.

Later, when in a difficulty, he did not scruple to rise from his seat and cross the hearth to point out a phrase or passage he was unable to translate. And she, perchance, would lay down her work, glance at his book, and look calmly up in his face as she gave the true reading in a clear, firm voice.

After a time, for easier reference, he brought his own seat near to hers, so that he might have her assistance without rising. And, although his dark-brown head and her light one were thus frequently drawn close together, his one idea had such thorough possession of him, that his single-minded desire for knowledge disarmed the seeming familiarity of all obtrusiveness.

Certainly, neither he nor Elaine had the slightest conception that anything was being taught or learned other than the King's English.

She was too retiring and well behaved to thrust herself into the prominent notice of a stranger, so that after that first general impression that the baker's niece was a pretty and tidy young woman, he scarcely bestowed a second thought upon her.

Mrs. Rosser's astounding intimation that her husband taught Welshmen to read English had swallowed up all minor considerations, just as the River Taff swallowed up all sorts of tributary streams in its course to the sea.

Then, apart from his lingual studies, his furnace-building was ever on his mind. It was a very great and novel undertaking, and the whole force of his intelligence was brought to bear upon it.

So that, although she moved before him in her daily occupations, and ministered to his necessities at meal-times, it was just as if a sister had been before his eyes continually. Certainly, she always wore shoes and stockings, and, on Sundays, the very set of her cloak and tall hat, and the border of white linen cap, had a grace and fitness most becoming. And she carried her English prayer-book to church so unobtrusively, and found her places so readily, he was bound to notice that; but there some envy blunted the edge of admiration.

Her influence was that of summer dew on vegetation. It refreshes insensibly and imperceptibly. Had she bustled about noisily, had there been any discord between her and her aunt, it would have arrested his attention with the jarring effect of a thunderstorm.

As it was, she became part and parcel of his daily life, and it was not until he had been about three years in Cardiff that a slight illness which kept her in her own room for a week or ten days roused him to the consciousness how much he was indebted to her for the comfort and brightness of his surroundings.

However intelligent a companion Walter Rosser might be – and he could talk both of the world and of books, having known both before blindness set in – he lacked just the touch of kindly appreciation so gratifying to the self-esteem of the rising young builder after years of home-snubbing; the word or two of discriminating opinion his niece gave so thoughtfully whenever doubts and difficulties beset him in the execution of his plans; for all was not fair sailing, clever as he might be, and there were times when he was glad of a sympathetic ear.

He was restless and uneasy the whole time she lay ill upstairs, and was ready to ransack the town for tea, oranges, or any other over-sea luxury she might fancy. And he was never the same to her, or she to him, after she was back by the household fire, paler, but oh! how infinitely dearer!

The touch of his horny hand, and the softened tones of his voice, said more than his commonplace words of greeting: ''Deed, Elaine, it's right glad we are to have you downstairs again. We have been missing you so terribly.'

And there was more than the tremulousness of physical weakness in her low reply: 'Yes, and I am glad to be here. It is miserable to be shut up away from you all, giving aunt and you so much trouble; but we may bear with illness when friends are so kind.'

CHAPTER XXIII.
BRIDGE-BUILDING

It so happened that when William Edwards had taken his first holiday, in 1741, to be groomsman at the marriage of his sister Jonet with his friend Thomas Williams, that he had found Caerphilly – nay, all Eglwysilan – in a state of ferment, owing to the exciting presence in their midst of the noted preacher, the Rev. George Whitfield, for many years the colleague of the Rev. John Wesley, and only recently separated from him through doctrinal difference.

They had alike left their pulpits in the Church to go preaching and teaching throughout the land, in the high-ways and by-ways, denouncing the vice and folly and sin then rampant, calling sinners to repentance, admonishing their hearers to lead simple, pure, and Christ-like lives, and preaching the acceptable year of the Lord, at the same time holding, as it were, the flaming sword of God's wrath over the impenitent.

It should here be told that, finding his dear mother made light of by Cate, and set aside on the farm so very recently her own, William had himself taken the first opportunity that presented itself to remove her and Jonet to a farm he had acquired in the Aber Valley – not far from his friend Thomas Williams – a farm for his mother and Davy to manage between them.

His road hither, of course, lay through Caerphilly; and after having left the town behind him nearly two miles, he was surprised to find a concourse of people in a field by the wayside, not far from his own home, listening to a man in a clerical gown and bands, who stood on a pile of stones, and, with impassioned voice and gesture, besought his hearers to 'flee from the wrath to come.' His text had evidently been: 'To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart;'¹⁵ and he hammered at the 'to-day' until he drove it into the hearts of many around him. Women wept, men fell on their knees and called out aloud as emotion swayed them, and William sat like a statue until the last word was spoken and the preacher, worn out with his own fervour, turned to depart along with some friends of his own.

William, like scores beside him, had gone to church and read his Bible as a duty; had learned the catechism the good vicar drilled into the youth of his flock; but beyond that his religion did not go very deep.

George Whitfield's sermon, on which he had come so suddenly, was like the bow drawn at a venture, the sharp arrow from which smote the King of Israel between the joints of his armour; for so it pierced the heart of the young man, whose very thought of late had been of furnace-building and of English study.

The face, the voice, the manner of the earnest preacher haunted him no less than his awakening words. And when Davy, who had been also a listener, laid his hand upon the horse's bridle, and spoke to him, he started like one aroused from a dream.

To suit general convenience – the old vicar's included – it had been arranged that Jonet and Thomas Williams should be married at St. Martin's, Caerphilly – then only a chapel-of-ease to Eglwysilan; and there a fresh surprise awaited William Edwards, for when, the following day, the united wedding party from Brookside and Aber dashed helter-skelter along the road to the church, in their race to catch the bride, he beheld a gravely-attired procession on foot, somewhat ahead of them, proceeding calmly in the same direction. And, when their own panting steeds had been left behind at a convenient inn, he observed that, of the more decorous bridal party entering the church porch, the bridegroom, a man of some twenty-seven years, was no other than that same Rev. George Whitfield, whose words had burnt themselves into his breast, never to be effaced, and his bride, Elizabeth James, whom he knew by sight.

He could scarcely keep his eyes off the man, or his attention on the business before him. Yet he could not fail to notice that the aged vicar, who was growing feeble and tremulous, was apparently conscious he had no ordinary couple before him to unite in holy matrimony, and performed the ceremony for both parties with unusual impressiveness, undisturbed by the sounds of giggling and tittering in the rear.

Such giggling and tittering were of common occurrence, as was the rough struggle for the first kiss of the newly-made bride, and the Rev. John Smith raised no voice in rebuke or protest when such a rush was made towards Jonet.

Not so the evangelistic bridegroom. No sooner were their names signed in the register, than with his bride upon his arm, he quitted the church. Then, surrendering her to the care of the sedate groomsman, he mounted a tombstone, and with uplifted hand and voice demanded attention.

So unwonted was the proceeding, that even the most hilarious paused and drew near out of mere curiosity; but when they left the chapelyard they had received such a lecture on the reverence due to the sacred place, on the solemnity of the ceremony they were present to witness, and on the import for time and eternity of the vows there made in the sight of God – such a lecture as few of those there assembled were likely to forget.

At its close, William, withdrawing from his companions, walked up to Mr. Whitfield and thanked him heartily for his discourses, both there and the previous afternoon. 'You have roused me from spiritual apathy and carelessness into which I never shall sink again,' he said, with characteristic decision. 'And should you come to Cardiff before you leave South Wales, you may count on me as an awakened hearer.'

The preacher's influence did not soon die away. William had other opportunities for joining in the services led by the enthusiastic preacher, and in his zeal prevailed on the blind baker and his niece to bear him company. Rosser's infirmity threw him much within himself. Elaine was naturally of a serious cast, and the eloquence of the powerful revivalist moved them both greatly.

This was long before the girl's illness to which I have already referred. But as William and her uncle conversed together on the great truths they had heard so powerfully expounded, or joined in household prayer, there can be no doubt a link was forged and strengthened to draw the young people closer together, however insensibly, than if they had spent their leisure in light chatter and frivolous fooling. Yet nothing had been said in the course of years of either love or marriage.

Meanwhile William had made himself conversant with English. Then, at the instance of Rosser, he procured the works of Sir Isaac Newton, and devoted himself to the study of geometry and kindred sciences with the assiduity of a man bent on success.

Barely had he completed his furnaces for Mr. John Morris when proposals for like work came to him from other quarters, offering him most liberal and gratifying terms.

Then, and not before, did he open out all his heart to Elaine, and, proud of the distinction it implied, pressed her to become his wife before he closed his engagement with his first patron, or entered upon a fresh one which would remove him to a distance.

He had come upon Elaine in the twilight as she stood behind the flap-counter of her uncle's open shop, with a few unsold loaves upon the board, and, elate with the prospect before him, never doubted she who had grown so dear to his heart would gladly put her hand in his to share his rising fortunes.

He drew her closer to him as he stood beside her in the shade, and met with no repulse, for she owned she knew his worth and loved him dearly, but his soaring spirit drooped its wings under a sudden check.

'Nay, nay, dear William,' she said, amid slowly falling tears, 'it cannot be. How I shall miss you, and grieve for you in your absence, there is no telling; but though I can marry no one else, I cannot leave my good uncle and aunt now they are getting into years. They have been all the father and mother I have known.'

'But, my dearest Elaine, do not daughters leave their parents to become wives? I never expected such an answer from you. Surely, when I took that farm in the Aber Valley years ago, had I no deeper meaning than to make my mother and David more comfortable? Had you no suspicion that one day I should want to place my wife there, and make a home for both of us?'

Her tears dropped on the strong hand that held hers in its clasp, but she answered never a word.

'Elaine, dear Elaine,' he went on, 'I can enlarge the homestead, and extend the farm lands, so that your uncle and aunt could live with us all under one roof, if you will but consent.'

'Don't, don't, William dear,' she sobbed. 'It is very, very kind of you, but it would never answer. You must not even suggest such a thing to my uncle. He is proud of his double calling as baker and teacher. How often have you heard him say with pride "he provided food for both body and mind; and no man with both his eyes could do more"? No, you would wound his self-dependence. I honour your good heart, but – I cannot leave them.'

'Is there no one else can take your place, Elaine? How am I to leave you here alone?'

She shook her head. 'They have no one but their married daughter in Bristol. What sort of a wife should I make if I failed in my duty to them? Besides, a wife just now would only cripple your freedom of action. We are both young enough to wait.'

'Young enough if willing.' His obstinate temper was rising.

'If it be God's will, it should be our will.' As she spoke she withdrew from his clasp.

'Look you, Elaine!' he exclaimed, with something of his old passion. 'The more a string is stretched, the sooner it breaks.' And away he went in high displeasure, leaving her standing there faint with her own effort at self-suppression.

It did not rest there. He was persistent. She was firm. And he had neither won her consent to marry, nor come to terms for the construction of fresh smelting works, when another project was on foot, which was to make or mar the man.

I have said that roads were defective, and that bridges were needed to span rivers which cut off communication between town and town, county and county, and shut up the vast mineral wealth of South Wales.

Herbert, the new Lord of Cardiff, had made the Castle his residence, the discoveries in connection with Mr. Pryse having determined him to see with his own eyes, and to delegate irresponsible authority to no one. He strengthened the hands of Mr. Morris in his efforts to utilise the iron and coal of the county, and to provide remunerative work for the depressed population. And he did what he could to improve, not merely the decaying town, but the rest of his vast possessions in Glamorganshire. He soon became keenly alive to the necessity for better communication with his property on the other side of the Taff than that of ferry, or ford, or coracle.

In this he was by no means alone.

Other landowners, magistrates, and men who saw fortunes buried beneath the soil, or losing half their value upon it for want of accessible markets, grumbled and growled on their own hearths, or to each other when they chanced to meet, until the discontent became so general that the heads of the county met in conclave at the Angel Inn in Cardiff, and decided on the erection of a stone bridge over the treacherous Taff.

Then came the question, 'Who should be the builder?'

'There is no better builder whatever in all South Wales than Mr. William Edwards,' said Mr. Morris, with decision.

'Indeed, and that's the truth,' came simultaneously from various speakers.

'But he has never erected a bridge, and he is so very young,' put in another dubiously. 'It will be a work of difficulty. We should engage an architect of established repute.'

'He never put up a mill until he built Owen Wynn's flour-mill, and he never put up a furnace until he built mine,' replied Mr. Morris; 'and you all know what those are. But, young as he is, you may take my word for it he will undertake nothing he is not competent to carry out, and he is certain to accomplish whatever he has set his mind upon.'

A good deal of heated argument followed this speech.

The former speaker adhered to his suggestion that 'some one of more eminence should be engaged – such a man, for instance, as Mr. James Gibbs, an architect of note.'

His lordship shook his head. 'Yes; Mr. Gibbs is an ecclesiastical architect of note, but you require a bridge, not a church, or a' —

'What? That old Scotchman!' burst from impatient lips. 'Did he ever build a bridge? And what should a Scotchman know of our Welsh rivers? And what would he charge?'

That suggestion of an exorbitant cost virtually settled the business before Mr. Morris rose again, and with a wave of the hand to calm the patriotic hubbub, remarked —

'I think, gentlemen, you will have to fall back on Mr. William Edwards. He is confessedly the best builder in all South Wales – a practical builder, not a mere architect. He was but a boy about nine years of age when he told me his father had been drowned in crossing the Eglwysilan ford, and that when he was a big man he would build a bridge there to save other lives. Believe me, he would put his heart into the work. And he is not an alien.'

On the following day, September 16, 1746, three gentlemen, dressed in deep vests, full-skirted coats, and three-cornered hats, more or less in conformity with English wear, presented themselves at the baker's shop, and asked to see Mr. Edwards.

They were shown upstairs into the class-room parlour by Elaine, and then she tapped gently at William's door opposite in the dark passage, and told him he was wanted.

He was at that moment seated, pen in hand, in front of his bureau-desk, with a sheet of paper before him, on which he had begun to indite his acceptance of the smelter's proposal.

Who could be wanting him?

Down went his quill; he thrust his arms into the short-tailed coat hung over his chair back, gave himself a shake, and in less than two minutes he was face to face with Mr. Morris and two strangers, to whom he was formally introduced as Mr. William Edwards. They were magistrates, and men of note in the county, deputed to lay before him the project for bridging over the Taff, and ascertain his willingness to undertake its construction.

Mr. Morris had placed himself in the broad window seat, his friends had drawn a couple of the high-backed chairs between the window and the table to bring them closer together, and as William stood there with the full light of the setting sun upon his somewhat square features, they could perceive him start and rest one strong nervous hand upon the table, whilst his broad nostrils quivered, his bright clear eyes lit up, and his face flushed, only to whiten under the excitement of their proposal, and the remembrance of the unfinished letter upon his desk.

There could be no second thought of his acceptance.

'Willing to undertake it, gentlemen?' he said breathlessly. 'Competent? It has been my dream from boyhood; though I owe the first suggestion to a jesting hint from Mr. Morris. Stay, I will show you.'

In less than three minutes he had fetched from the bureau in the other room – where he left a crumpled-up letter – several drawings of bridges in all stages of architectural finish, from the first rude conception of his youth, to the riper studies of manhood.

By the time his contract with Mr. Morris expired, his design for the proposed bridge had been considered and approved, as also the site, close upon the Eglwysilan ford, midway between Merthyr Tydvil and Cardiff, so as to unite the already beaten road.

He was elate and buoyant over the trust reposed in him; although Rhys, his mother, Davy, and other friends had been called upon to enter into bonds for the fulfilment of his contract, since he was to be paid as the work proceeded.

The intending smelter, desirous to secure his services, consented to wait until he was again at liberty.

The young architect's pride had but one drawback. He could not shake Elaine's fidelity to her uncle and aunt. She would not desert them in their old age.

'It will be better for you to go to this great work unfettered by a wife,' she argued bravely.

But he would not see the personal sacrifice she made, and went off at last in a huff.

'This new business will be his solace,' she said. 'I must be content to do my duty, and leave the rest to God.'

And neither her aunt nor her blind uncle knew the temptation she had resisted for their sakes, though they thought her quieter than before.

She was right. His new business left William little leisure for looking back.

He had gone over to Bristol to engage masons, in addition to those he had already trained, before he finally took leave.

Then there was no running back. His first duty was to erect huts or houses for his workpeople and their families; and he took care they were such as should be of service when the temporary purpose was served.

He had long before made John Llwyd his foreman – a good deputy on whom he could rely; just as he could depend on his old friend Robert Jones for the best of stone from the very best local quarries, or for his sand and lime. For the carriage of other matters to and fro he fell back on Robert's active young partner Hughes, for whom the peat-cutter's niece had jilted easy-going Davy.

But ere the foundations of the bridge were laid and firm, the builder had engaged his brother-in-law, Thomas Williams, to supply the wooden frames on which his arches were to be fitted and adjusted. And so, with trustworthy coadjutors like these, the work went on steadily.

At first he had to battle with the deceitful river; but he and his men watched the skies and did their best to prevent disaster, though more than one occurred.

But the resolution of their master seemed infused into the men. If there was any doubt or hazard, he took the tools himself, and wrought until they were ashamed to hang back.

Though he had a farm of his own but two miles or so away, and his brother's farm was close at hand, he occupied one of the new cottages along with Llwyd, and so was always on the spot.

Besides that, he fared almost as his men fared. If a labourer's wife or child fell sick he helped them from his own stores or pocket; and his men worked all the better for his thoughtful kindness.

His bridge-building had brought quite a colony upon the spot, not merely of the workpeople, but of others, who found they had money to spend and wants to be supplied.

Soon he become conscious of another want. The Rev. John Smith, the kind old vicar, had died full of years shortly after Jonet's marriage, and the new vicar did not seem to recognise the strangers as part of his flock. So William, finding the non-observance of the Sabbath led to disorder, called the people round him, and from the Druids' rocking-stone read out portions of Scripture to them, now and then venturing on expositions of his own.

So the weeks and the seasons rounded until at the end of two years there stood a fine three-arched bridge across the river, to be opened with loud acclaim and rejoicing – a bridge the excited guarantors pronounced firm and solid enough to stand as surely for seventy years as seven, the period for which its stability was guaranteed.

'Indeed!' exclaimed the proud young builder. 'It is more likely to stand firm for seven hundred years!'