The Life of Roger Langdon Part 3

Then the young man from the spinning department jumped up, and with an oath cried, "They," meaning his brothers, "do not half fine them here.

You should come over to my place and see my books." In less than a week this man was seized with a fit and fell dead; and the poor people, in their simplicity, said it was a judgment sent from Heaven. The owners of the firm evidently did not think so, for they continued to fine the people as usual.

On the following Whit Monday more after-dinner speeches were being made when the head of the bleaching department boasted that he had six hundred pounds which he had mulcted from his workers in fines. He forthwith built a new house and furnished it in grand style, and sent me to Taunton to buy him a grand piano. The day for opening the new house was appointed, friends were invited and every preparation made for a grand feast. The day arrived, and the young boaster was riding up and down on his high-mettled white horse inspecting the arrangements when the horse, treading upon a half-rotten turnip, plunged and fell, and rolled completely over its rider, who was taken up and carried into the new house where he had never lived, a corpse. The simple-minded people also called this a judgment from above. Very soon after this a large fire occurred at this factory which threw a great number of men, women, boys and girls out of work. As for myself I soon engaged myself to a solicitor, and my duties varied between serving writs and gardening.

Every time I delivered a writ I had to be put on my oath the following morning that I had so delivered, and then I used to receive three shillings and sixpence for my trouble. Sometimes I had to make three or four journeys before I could accomplish the delivery, as so many well-known gentlemen would cleverly keep out of my way. On one occasion I had to serve a writ on a gentleman who always managed to be away when I called; but my master told me that if I had reasons for believing that he was at home I should walk in. The next evening when I called and the servant told me her master had just gone out, I pushed past her, and got into the dining-room, where the gentleman was just cutting away at a piece of roast beef. I handed the doc.u.ment to him and, bowing politely, retired as hastily as possible. As I turned to the door I heard something whirr past my shoulder and strike the wall beyond. It was the carving knife.

Another difficult case was that of a master carpenter who lived several miles from my master's office. It was summer time, and he went away to his works as soon as it was daylight and was not at home until nine in the evening. I could never find this gentleman at home although I called several evenings in succession, and at last I grew tired of walking so many miles several times a week. As there was a porch at the door I decided to sit down there and wait until he did come home. I sat and dozed until about 3 a.m., when I heard some one moving inside the house.

Presently the door opened, and out came the gentleman I wanted. He was thunderstruck to see me there. I delivered the writ into his hands, and we both said "Thank you," and went our ways.

After I had been in this situation two years it was a very disagreeable blow to me to hear that my master was retiring from business and would have no further need of my services. He and I had got on together very comfortably for two years, and he was a kind employer, so I was really very sorry.

I was now twenty-five years of age, and, like other young men, I thought it time to begin to see about "committing matrimony." I had become acquainted with Miss Anne Warner, who lived at Henley-on-Thames, and she decided that she would marry me, if I got a permanent situation either on the railway or in the post office. Accordingly, I applied for the railway, and was appointed as porter at Bristol in May, 1850. The Bristol and Exeter railway at that time was in its infancy. Amongst the articles served out to me was a wooden staff or truncheon, to be used, if necessary, for clearing the station.

In October of the same year I was married to Miss Warner at St. Mary Redcliffe's Church, Bristol. I knew that I was not to remain long at Bristol, so my wife and I took rooms for a while. I was very soon sent as signalman to Stoke Canon, a village in Devonshire, where at that time there was no station, but only a crossing. I had to leave my wife in Bristol until I could obtain a suitable home, which I did as soon as possible, as keeping two homes going was a very expensive thing to do, and my wages at that time were only 16_s._ a week. My only accommodation when on duty, which was twelve hours a day, or an alternate week's night duty, was a sort of sentry box--a wretched affair, especially in cold weather, and for night duty.

While at Stoke Canon I made a model of the village church. The only tools I had for this work were a pocket knife and a hammer. Some time after I added a peal of bells which were set ringing by putting a penny in a slot in the roof of the church.

In 1853 our eldest daughter was born, and in the following year I was removed to Martock in Somersetshire, where a son was born. In 1857 I was removed to Durston, and in May another daughter was born. My wages were then 1 a week, a very small income on which to keep ourselves and three children and pay rent, but my wife kept a school and had several neighbours' children to teach. We were very happy together, and I was glad that I was born!

G.o.d IN HIS WORKS

Dost them love nature? Dost thou love Amid her wonders oft to rove, Marking earth, sea, the heavens above, With curious eye?

Read, then, that open book; see where The name of G.o.d, inscribed there, Urges thee on till thou declare, "My G.o.d, I see!"

Yet venture not, my soul, to come Within fair earth's material dome Without thy G.o.d: thou hast no home To compa.s.s thee.

Nature's fair works must e'er be read As penned by nature's Sovereign Head; Else were its loveliest pages dead-- Without His key.

But by the Polar Star of Grace, Nature a.s.sumes her proper place, And thou mayst safely lead and trace Her harmony.

M. M. C.

CHAPTER VII

SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS

[BY MISS ELLEN LANGDON]

THE above chapters were written by my father Roger Langdon, and I, his daughter, Ellen, am continuing the story of his life. So I will begin by saying that the school kept by my mother was conducted in the same manner as were the church schools at that time. Everything was very orderly and we just had to mind our p's and q's.

Our parish church and school were five miles away, so it was only possible for us to go there occasionally. We usually made the journey sitting on a trolley which father pushed part of the way, and then we would clamber up the railway bank and walk on to church. But there was another church nearer, to which as soon as we were big enough father would take us on alternate Sunday mornings, when he was off duty.

We had a large front room which was used as a schoolroom, and here we, with our neighbours' children, were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, geography, sewing, and the Catechism. When father was on night duty (the duty in those days was twelve hours at a time) he would be at home in the morning, and sometimes he would take us for Scripture. In this his teaching was unorthodox and advanced, and he always gave us plenty to think about. When later on we went to a school at Taunton we found ourselves in most subjects in advance of children who had attended schools in the town.

During the eight years my parents spent at Durston three more sons were born to them; so there were now six of us, and I have often wondered since how mother managed to keep the school going with such a large family of her own. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was a frequent visitor, and would also be at work all day long. My father's father too would often come, and he used to make us stand by the harmonium and sing. I would like to say that my grandfather was one of Father Matthew's earliest converts to teetotalism, and he tried his best to get others to believe in the same thing.

At this time father made a harmonium, which proved such a success that he was able to sell it, and with the proceeds he bought material to make a second. He also made a magic-lantern, and made slides of the stars and sun and moon and comets, and at Christmas time he would invite the neighbours to see the lantern, and he would give them all the information he could on the subject. He also told us about the electricity which was some day to light up our houses and town and drive our railways and carriages. He told us about photography, and how we should live to see "living pictures." Then for us he made all sorts of mechanical toys--walking dolls, wooden horses and boats. The forms which were used in the schoolroom he also made, as well as tables, chairs, our boots, and his own, a little carriage for the smaller children, and later on a perambulator. He was able to make anything he wished, but of course it all meant labour, and never a moment's idleness. And he had to put up with a great deal of enmity on account of his being so set against the drink traffic, and never going to the _Railway Hotel_ to spend his earnings.

While we were at Durston we had the pleasure of seeing Garibaldi. His train was crossed on to another line. We children were playing as usual on the bank above the station, and when Garibaldi's carriage stopped right in front of us of course we all screamed with delight, and our noise brought everybody out, and the men got so excited they crawled all over the top of the carriage and shouted for all they were worth.

In 1865 my father was removed to Taunton. His duty was at Norton Fitzwarren crossing, where there was no station, so he had only a small office to sit in, which, as he still had the night duty, he began to find very trying. House rent at Taunton was heavy, so mother applied for a schoolmistress's situation, and she kept this post for nearly two years. Meanwhile another son was born. But we were not very happy at Taunton, for father was often ill during the time we were there.

The school in which mother taught was next to our house, and was also used on Sundays as a Mission Chapel. When we first went there they used to chant the _Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_, and a hymn, to the accompaniment of an accordion. Father did not like the sound, especially when he had to sleep on Sunday before going on night duty; so he offered to lend his new harmonium if they would take care of it and could find some one to play it. The curate, the Rev. J. Jackson, was much pleased with the idea, and he persuaded a crippled lady, Miss Emma Mockeridge, to undertake the duties of organist. She used to be wheeled down on Sundays to play, and twice in the week besides she would gather the children round her in the schoolroom and teach them the hymn. So she came in all weathers from quite a long distance to do this work, and after a time she began to visit the people who attended the service, and told them that since Mr. Langdon would not accept any payment for the use of his harmonium it was their duty to provide themselves with a new one of their own. Before very long she succeeded in collecting enough money to buy one. At this time Mr. Jackson held evening cla.s.ses for men and charged them a halfpenny a week. Father with some others went to him to learn Greek, and got on very well with it. He greatly enjoyed these cla.s.ses, and in later life would say how grateful he was for them.

While we were at Taunton there was an election, and father had a vote. A great deal of bribery went on; indeed the Conservative member was afterwards unseated for bribery. Mr. Henry James (now Lord James) was the Liberal candidate, and he won the election. My father told us all about it, and said if any one meeting us in the town, or calling at the house, should offer to give us children anything we must on no account take anything. I do not know who the people were, but they mostly called in the evening, and would offer us groceries and other things.

One evening I had been to the station to meet father, when a gentlemanly looking person came up to him, saying, "Mr. Langdon, I believe."

Father raised his hat and said, "Yes, that is my name."

"You have got a vote?"

"Yes, I have."

"Well, are you going to give it to us?"

"That is my business, not yours."

"Come now, don't be a fool," said the gentleman, "you have got a little family; what will you do it for?" at the same time holding up one finger. "I am not to be bought," father replied. The gentleman then went on holding up fingers till he had got all his ten fingers up, and father at last cried, "No, I tell you no," to which the other replied, "You thundering fool." Father raised his hat with "Thank you, and you are another," and off we went.

My father was deeply interested in astronomy, which he had studied a great deal with the help of books, and he had bought celestial and terrestrial globes. Now he wanted a telescope. Mr. Nicholetts, a dear old gentleman who lived at Petherton, had a telescope; and he often invited father to his house to look through it, and this gave father great pleasure and increased his ambition to possess one of his own. So for a few shillings he bought some second-hand lenses, and soon succeeded in making a small telescope, with a 1-1/2-inch reflector mounted on a wooden stand and swivel. This small instrument only whetted his desire for something better; so he sold it for 7_s._ 6_d._ and with the money obtained materials for another. After many difficulties and disappointments, which by sheer luck and hard work he surmounted, this second telescope was at last completed. This one had a four-inch reflector, and with its aid the ring and some of the satellites of the planet Saturn could be seen. The crescent form of Venus and some of the nebulae were also plainly visible. And when father first saw the moon through it he said he was fairly astonished, for up to that time he had no idea how much of the physical features of the moon could be seen.

In 1867 father was appointed station-master at Silverton in Devonshire.

It was at the end of 1868 that we left Taunton and took up our abode in our new home; and thus began what father always described as the happiest time of his life. For one thing he had from this time forward no more night duty, and his health improved considerably in consequence, so that he became stronger than he had been for many years. He greatly rejoiced, too, that there was no drinking bar at this station. Another great advantage was that we were now within reach of Exeter where there was a good school to which the younger children could be sent daily by train. In March 1870 my youngest sister was born; so now there were eight of us. But the following year my eldest brother was killed by an accident at the station. This was a terrible blow to both my parents, and the trouble turned father's auburn hair as white as snow. At Silverton father made many friends, amongst them Sir Thomas Acland and our good rector, Rev. H. Fox Strangways and his lady.

In 1870 my father became acquainted through the _English Mechanic_ with Dr. Blacklock, and this gentleman gave him advice regarding the building of his telescopes; but it was all done by letter, for they never met, and it was wonderful how Dr. Blacklock found time with all his work to write so many letters as he did. Father also received letters from Mr.

Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, on the same subject. Mr.

Nasmyth took great interest in him and would write two or three sheets at a time, pointing out the difficulties and explaining how they might be overcome, and drawing diagrams of the tools he would need. After father had made the speculum, which he found exceedingly difficult, it had to be silvered on the front surface; and on this point Dr. Blacklock gave him valuable information which enabled father to do it successfully at the very first attempt.

In 1874 father made a model in plaster of Paris of the visible hemisphere of the moon, showing five hundred princ.i.p.al objects, hollows, craters, and mountains. This model he afterwards presented to the Devon and Exeter Inst.i.tute. Mr. C. R. Collins of Teignmouth once wrote an article describing the discovery of a new crater on the moon by Dr.

Hermann J. Klein of Cologne. Going to his observatory father was able to show on this model of the moon, as the result of his own observations, this very crater.

Father had now made two telescopes, but he hoped to make another and still better one; so he set to work, and it was in the making of this that he received so much valuable advice from Mr. Nasmyth and Dr.

Blacklock.

This third telescope was a beautiful instrument. It had a six-inch speculum with a five foot focal length. With this he was enabled to detect certain markings upon the planet Venus. In 1871 he read a paper before the Royal Astronomical Society in London upon this subject. He said afterwards that he never was so nervous in his life as on this occasion, and he wished the earth would open and swallow him up. But his paper was very well received, and commended.[1] He also made over a thousand drawings and photographs of the moon's surface.

[1] Webb quotes from this paper in his book _Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes_. My father's observations are also mentioned in Clarke's _History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century_.

Much as father had accomplished, he was still bitten with the idea that his telescope was not so good as he would like, although it was a splendid one, and had cost him many weary hours' hard work to make. So he sold it for 10, and in the year 1875 set about making his fourth telescope--a very n.o.ble instrument, for which he had to build an observatory. He describes it thus: "An 8-1/4-inch silver-on-gla.s.s reflector mounted in a stout zinc tube, which turns in a cast-iron cradle on its own axis. The focal length is seven feet. There is a diagonal place for viewing the stars and a specially prepared gla.s.s wedge for observing the sun. The whole is mounted as an equatorial upon a strong cast-iron stand. It had two stout bra.s.s right ascension circles divided to 10 seconds, and declination circles divided to 5 minutes of arc. The telescope is furnished with a driving clock which keeps the celestial object in the field of view. The observatory is a circular iron building with conical-shaped revolving roof, two swing flaps of which give the required opening to the sky."

This telescope took a long time to make, and night after night through many a weary month, when station duty was done, father would work at it for hours together in his home-made work-shop. But, as usual, the want of funds hampered him a good deal, and he found many difficulties to overcome; but he worked away with intense enthusiasm, and with the advice of Dr. Blacklock and Mr. Nasmyth, he at last completed this Newtonian equatorial reflecting telescope fitted with a finder with Ramsden eye-piece. He added to it a trap for taking photographs, the invention of his own brain, and in visiting Greenwich Observatory some years later he was pleased to find that the apparatus in use there for the same purpose was almost identical with his own. With this telescope my father photographed the transit of Venus and took also several pictures of the sun and of the moon.

To make his first telescope in 1865 he bought some second-hand lenses for a few shillings, and by means of a turning lathe he turned a stick upon which to roll the tin case, according to the size of the lens.