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I'll look for you back on the evening train?" "Sure," was the confident reply, "if the Rajah doesn't order it to be abandoned on my poor account." Ten minutes later, when the train had gone storming on its way to Carbonate and the Rosemary party was at breakfast, the clank of steel and the chanteys of the hammermen on the other side of the canyon began again with renewed vigor.
Wha wad hae thought but mysell of making a bolt of my ain back-bane? But it's no sae strong as thae that I hae seen in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh. The hammermen of Edinburgh are to my mind afore the warld for making stancheons, ring-bolts, fetter-bolts, bars, and locks. And they arena that bad at girdles for carcakes neither, though the Cu'ross hammermen have the gree for that.
It happened, however, that there was among those valiant traders and craftsmen of Glasgow one Thomas Sword, the deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was son to Michael Gilhaize, the Lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in, saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when young men, in the King's armoury at Stirling; and he told him where he lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper, for he was glad to see him for his father's sake.
I was in ecstasies every moment at the world of wonders in which I now found myself; the forests of masts rising over the acres of shipping in the East and West India docks away on our right, looking like the trunks of innumerable trees huddled together, and stretching for miles and miles as far as the eye could see; the deafening din of the hammermen and riveters, hammering and riveting the frames of a myriad iron hulls of vessels building in the various shipwright yards along the river bank from Blackwall to Purfleet; the shriek of steam whistles in every key from passing steamers that seemed as if they would come into collision with us each moment, they sheered by so dangerously near; the constant succession of wharfs and warehouses, and endless rows of streets and terraces on both sides of the stream; the thousands of houses joined on to other houses, and buildings piled on buildings, forming one endless mass of massive bricks and mortar, with the river stealing through it like a silver thread, that reached back, behind, up the stream to where, in the dim perspective, the dome of Saint Paul's, rising proudly above a circlet of other church spires, stood out in relief against the bright background of the crimson sky glowing with the reflection of the setting sun just sinking in the west, all making me wonder where the people came from who lived and toiled in the vast city, whose outskirts only I saw before me, seemingly boundless though my gaze might be.
There were draughtsmen to make designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings. Smiths to forge all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants. Pattern-makers to make wooden patterns for castings. Moulders, including loam, dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders. Dressers to dress the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry. Turners in iron and brass.
Under Lieutenant Bond, R.N., and Mr Haig gunboats, steamers, barges and sailing craft were put in thorough order, native artisans toiling day and night. The clang of hammermen, riveters, carpenters and caulkers resounded along the river front.
As in London so in Glasgow, however, the rules of the Guild of Hammermen, to which it was decided a mathematical instrument maker would belong, if one of such high calling made his appearance, prevented Watt from entrance if he had not consumed seven years in learning the trade. He had mastered it in one, and was ready to demonstrate his ability to excel by any kind of test proposed.
In a twinkling the corded piles of cross-ties had melted to reappear in cobhouse balks bridging an angle from the Utah embankment to that of the spur track in the rear of the blockading Rosemary. In briefest time the hammermen were spiking the rails on the rough-and-ready trestle, and the Italians were bringing up the crossing-frogs.
The panels had already been splintered to pieces and the iron plates driven from their bolts by the tremendous blows of the hammer, but the stout bar still stood. Through the yawning holes in the upper part of the door the hammermen could be seen at work without. Five guns flashed out, and yells and heavy falls told that the discharge had taken serious effect.
Wha wad hae thought but mysell of making a bolt of my ain back-bane? But it's no sae strong as thae that I hae seen in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh. The hammermen of Edinburgh are to my mind afore the warld for making stancheons, ring-bolts, fetter-bolts, bars, and locks. And they arena that bad at girdles for carcakes neither, though the Cu'ross hammermen have the gree for that.
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