The Making of William Edwards Part 30

'Well, Willem, I'll be sorry to be seeing the back of you; but sure and it may perhaps be the best for all,' added Rhys.

'What, going before I do be marrying?' questioned Jonet; 'but I don't wonder, anybody would be glad to get away.'

'Going to Cardiff? Oh, my dear boy, my Willem, what ever shall I be doing without you? Will you be long away?' cried his mother.

'Sure, and I cannot tell, mother dear. I may never come back to live here. And I am loth to leave you behind to be plagued with the "continual dropping" of a contentious woman, but I hope to have a farm of my own some day for you to manage, look you.'

Peace-loving Davy now put in his word, in lowered tones, to William and his mother.

"Deed, and I was be thinking for some time that the farm was not big enough to hold Cate and me. But if you be going away, Willem, I shall be staying to take care of mother here, till I can be making a home for her--yes, yes!' and he wrung William's hand as a token of brotherly love and trust.

In a very few days William was on his way to Cardiff, having taken a grateful farewell of the vicar on the Sunday; for, although Cardiff was little more than nineteen miles away, even by the Caerphilly route, they were more than equal to ninety in these steam and railroad times.

His mother parted from him with many rueful misgivings, and much good advice to resist the temptations sure to beset him in a wicked seaport town, much as an anxious country mother might in these days warn her untried son against the countless snares of London. And as she st.i.tched her warmest flannel up into shirts for him, and looked up newly-knitted hose, her tears fell upon them silently as her prayers.

His personal belongings did not occupy much s.p.a.ce. A few tools, chap-books and papers, and his entire wardrobe were comfortably packed in his father's old goatskin saddle-bags; and Robert Jones, with whom he had had several conferences of late on the qualities of stone from different quarries, found him a good steady horse which could be left at the Angel Inn until Robert claimed it on his next errand to Cardiff.

Robert Jones did him another service, the importance of which neither estimated at the time. He recommended him to apply for lodgings to a blind baker, named Walter Rosser, whose wife and niece were certain to make him comfortable.

The baker's shop was easily found, but there was some little hesitation about admitting a stranger as an inmate.

'What caused you to come hither in search of lodgings?' put the blind man, with his head on one side as if listening for the answer. 'And what may be your business in the town?'

'Robert Jones the peat-cutter did advise me to come here. He said you was honest and respectable and book-learned, and that you would be dealing fairly with me. And that your wife did be keeping your house as sweet and clean as my own mother kept the farm. My business do be to build for Mr. John Morris, look you!'

'There's a clear ring in your voice, young man,' said the baker then.

'And what may be your name?'

'I am Willem Edwards, of Brookside Farm, Eglwysilan,' answered he, with proud decision--just a little nettled with the blind man's catechism.

'Oh,' said the other, 'I think I have heard of you before. You did build Owen Wynn's flour-mill. Yes, yes, we shall be glad to have you, sir. You perceive my infirmity compels me to be particular whom we receive under our roof, since I have a young niece here, who has neither father nor mother to watch over her, and we are bound to be careful for her sake.'

'Yes, yes, sure, quite right,' a.s.sented the young man, after a glance beyond the baker and his wife at a blushing damsel in the shade.

Shops at that period were constructed much as are Turkish shops to this day. Very few had glazed windows. At night they were closed in by flap shutters, divided horizontally; the lower half of which was lowered in the daytime to serve as a table or counter for the display of goods, the upper half being so hooked up by an iron rod as to serve for a screen from sun or rain. The shop doors were similarly divided, the upper half hooking up to the low ceiling inside. I have known many such doors in country towns in England, some of which are, no doubt, extant to this day.

It will be readily understood that shops of this description, however small, were dark in the background, and to eyes less keen than William's, Elaine Parry's blush would have pa.s.sed unnoticed. It required after-observation to perceive how neat and trim she always was, how bashful and retiring, and how quiet and subdued were all her movements; what a steadfast light there was in her clear, hazel eyes, and what pretty dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.

He only noticed then that she remained quiescent when her uncle cried--

'Come in, sir--come in! I'll mind your horse whilst my good dame shows you the room we could let you have.'

Up one or two short flights of stairs with landings turning this way or that, then down a step into a short, dark pa.s.sage or recess containing two doors, and he was ushered into a small bedroom, which to him was the perfection of order and comfort--nay, luxury. True, there was only a narrow truckle bedstead, with a flock bed upon it, dowlas[14] sheets, and a dark blue woollen coverlet, but he had never been accustomed to anything better; and there was a diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nt, with a table in front, on which was a coa.r.s.e earthenware basin and ewer, and, hung against the wall, a looking-gla.s.s about the size of a sheet of note-paper, all luxurious intimations that his personal ablutions might be conducted in private. Then there was a fireplace in the room--just a couple of short iron bars fitted into the brickwork--and beside it, in a recess, a piece of furniture which puzzled William extremely. Yet it was nothing more than an oaken bureau, the drawers of which Mrs. Rosser pulled open to show that they were for his use if he became their inmate. The mystery of the turn-down flap for writing, the sliding rests to support its weight, and the enclosed pigeon-holes for papers was a revelation for the future.

He was almost afraid to ask 'How much?' and was wonderfully gratified to find the terms below his calculations, and also that he was expected to take his meals with the family.

All that settled, the door across the dark pa.s.sage was opened, and a room with a larger cas.e.m.e.nt was revealed. Here all was equally clean, from the well-scrubbed floor to the centre table and tall chairs ranged with stiff precision against the walls, whilst a broad seat beneath the window held piles of books, and the empty fireplace was adorned with large conch sh.e.l.ls.

'You can come and sit here if you want to be quiet, and will not make a litter,' said Mrs. Rosser. 'We seldom use the room, except when my husband is teaching.'

'Teaching?' echoed William curiously.

'Oh yes; don't you know he teaches people to read English?'

'Does what?' he almost gasped.

Mrs. Rosser repeated her words.

'Then Robert Jones has been doing me the best turn he ever did yet, for, look you, I've been wanting to learn English reading for many a year.'

How it was possible for a blind man to give such instruction was beyond his comprehension. He accepted the statement as one more of the marvels he had come across in the baker's comfortable home; and he brought in his saddle-bags, and gave his horse in charge to the baker's man, as if he were not sure he was wide awake.

He very soon discovered it was just the difference between living in a town of some antiquity within reach of a prosperous maritime city like Bristol, and dwelling apart among the mountain wilds, shut out from general intercourse, and dependent on itinerant packmen for everything but home produce.

Even in his meals there was some difference. If he still breakfasted on porridge, he was unaccustomed to see meat or eggs on the table daily, or to find the oven subst.i.tuted for the big pot in cookery, and he missed the potatoes in which they indulged on the farm.

When the shyness between himself and Elaine Parry, Mrs. Rosser's pretty niece, had somewhat worn away, he told her this.

'Oh,' said she, 'they are too dear for us. They are two shillings a pound in Cardiff market.'

'No, indeed! Then I will tell Robert Jones. The farmers do be planting; they will be cheaper before long, look you.'

And before very long a sack of good potatoes was set down by Robert Jones at the baker's door, a present from Brookside Farm.

In the interim William Edwards had not been idle. The site selected for the smelting works was just outside Cardiff, and within easy reach of the river.

There materials had been collected, and with the sole a.s.sistance of John Llwyd, he built, in the first instance, a blast-furnace on a small scale, tapering like a cone, the ore and fuel for which had to be supplied from the top, there being an orifice below from which the molten metal would escape in a stream.

An ordinary smith's bellows worked by Llwyd supplied the blast, a good fire of peat and charcoal being well alight before the coal and broken-up ore were thrown in. It answered fairly for a trial, but once alight could not be allowed to cool night or day. But the furnace being built and in working order, there was no difficulty in finding men to tend and keep it going.

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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.s him by, now that he had opened the floodgates wide.