The Making of William Edwards; or, The Story of the Bridge of Beauty

Both at Owen's cottage and the farm the women are busy as bees, baking and boiling for the wedding feast, for which Thomas Williams sets up long plank tables in the meadow that slopes to the foot of the hill, the break-neck ascent to the farm being a consideration on such an occasion.

For the brides are supposed unwilling to be wed, or their friends to part with them, and there is racing and chasing to recover the runaway brides, and mock contests to obtain possession of them, in which the mountain ponies play their parts well. Then, the brides being captured, there is the headlong race to the church, which bodes ill to any unwary pedestrian they may meet. It is a remnant of old barbaric custom not to be dispensed with, and all the youths and maidens, far and wide, join in the race. Scarcely less noisy is the return, when the ceremony is over, and each bride is mounted behind her husband, Rhys and Cate taking the precedence.

Be sure they bring appetites to the feast, where huge joints of boiled beef are matched by piles of smoking potatoes and turnips, the brown-jacketed esculents being as yet dainties to the multitude. Then there are great pitchers of cwrw da and buttermilk for thirsty throats. And if there be a deficiency of glass and cutlery, according to our notions, all is as it should be to the feasters, who are to the manner born, and not fastidious, and who fling their contributions to the feast into the earthen bowls with right goodwill.

Something much more important gave grace to the festive occasion, and that was the presence of a Welsh harper, one of the decaying race of bards, who sang them songs of Arthur and Llewellyn, and twanged his harp for lively dances on the greensward when the boards were cleared, and might be held accountable for more than one match decided that day. Certainly Thomas Williams obtained Jonet's shy promise to marry him in the spring if her mother would consent; and even Davy struck up an acquaintance with the niece of Robert Jones, that was likely to lead to something more in the end.

It was quite an exceptional gathering, for not a drop of rain fell the whole day to mar the entertainment, and, short though it was, a good round frosty moon offered its shining lamp to light the middle-aged couple and their escort to their new home beyond Caerphilly, and to make even the crossing of the Taff safe to the contingent from the mountains beyond. All had 'gone merry as a marriage bell.'

And here my story might be supposed to end; but for my hero – and I count William Edwards a hero – a new era was about to dawn.

I have indicated that mines of coal and iron were being worked in Glamorganshire, but that the want of roads and bridges for conveyance and communication retarded the development of its untold mineral resources. Then, the hard nature of the coal already dug unfitted it, except as culm, for household use or smelting purposes in such furnaces as existed, where the fuel was principally charcoal.

But about this time experiments were being made to test its utility, and Mr. John Morris, who for years had gone geologising among the mountains, was one of the first to suggest its feasibility. He had made experiments on a small scale, but Mr. Pryse had thrown impediments in the way of smelting on a larger basis in the neighbourhood of Cardiff, where the river and the sea were close for conveyance if his scheme succeeded.

'It was too near the Castle. His lordship would have no reeking furnaces so close to his residence. There was no land for sale,' etc. etc.

Mr. Morris was not to be put down by Mr. Pryse. He had applied, not to the old Viscount, but to his son and heir, who was not hoodwinked by Mr. Pryse, and cordially seconded the proposal. The old Viscount was even then on his deathbed. The succession of the new one, shortly after Mr. Pryse was committed to his narrow cell, left Mr. Morris free to act.

The day before the double wedding he explained his views to William Edwards, and made to him a proposition.

So it happened that, whilst Rhys and the rest were making merry, William was half the time lost in thought, and one or other rallied him on his unsociability, as they considered it.

He was simply considering his ability to undertake the erection of the smelting furnaces John Morris had in view. He had not much doubt of his own power to accomplish anything any other man could do, or had done, if the opportunity to study what had been previously done was afforded him. But here something was required differing from aught that had gone before, or with which he was acquainted.

Mr. Morris had given him time for mature deliberation. He had great faith in the capacity of the self-taught genius, and still more in his indomitable determination to overcome difficulties.

Yet books he had none that would afford the information he needed. He had done what he could to supply the defects of his education, thanks to the vicar. But he was still 'Cymro uniaith,' a Welshman of one language; and, though the literature of Wales certainly dates back to the twelfth century, and is said to date back to the sixth, its ancient legends, ballads, and poems would not instruct him how to build furnaces which should convert the hard Welsh coal into the smelter's slave.

If there were English books on the subject, he was ignorant, and could not have read them had such been laid before him.

He was not given to waste his time in unprofitable regrets.

Before any one else was astir he was on the road northward to Merthyr Tydvil, bent on examining the process of iron-smelting as there carried on. The name of John Morris procured him ready admission to the works. But, although they had been in existence for a couple of centuries, and the ancient forests had been denuded of their giant oaks to supply their furnaces, they had as yet no furnace that would fuse the ore with coal alone, and the oak trees were growing scarce.

William came away shaking his head, and muttering as he strode along: 'Sure, if those be their smelting furnaces, there do be one as good at the Castle. They do be wanting a stronger blast if they employ coal. It will be a job to construct furnaces that will burn the stone-coal Mr. Morris be saying gives such great heat with neither flame nor smoke. But I'm bound to have a try what I can be doing. Sure, I'm not willing to give in without a try, look you!'

And in this frame of mind he returned home to make calculations and sketches, and to think out the matter, walking to and fro in front of the house, with his head bent down and his hands behind him.

'Idling,' his mother called it. Rhys had grown wiser.

''Deed, mother, Willem do be having his "thinks." Best be leaving him alone.'

'But he do not even be knitting, look you!'

'Never mind, mother fach; he do be "studdying," as he do call it. We work with our hands; Willem do work with his head – yes, yes.'

The following day he was away again, much to his mother's discomfort, as his silent and wandering mood had always been.

If she had followed, she might have tracked him to his old storehouse of knowledge, Caerphilly Castle, and far down a crumbling flight of stone steps to a curious vault below the level of the moat, and, beneath that marvel of marvels, the reft, overhanging tower.

He had gathered, by inquiry from the vicar and others, that here had anciently been a furnace for the smelting of metals for coinage and other purposes; and that it was supposed to have been employed, during a siege, for melting lead to pour from the battlements upon the besiegers; and, further, that either the besiegers or some traitor within contrived to let in a jet of water from the moat upon the molten metal, causing the terrific explosion which rent the tower from top to bottom, and left the strongly-built half hanging eleven feet out of the perpendicular, as a testimony to future ages.

But it was not of battles or sieges William was thinking, unless it might be his own conflict with a difficulty. He was there to examine the ancient furnace, with no one to talk or interrupt, and to found his own theories thereupon.

In a very short time Mr. Morris had his answer.

'Yes, sir, I think I can undertake your work.'

It was a bold undertaking for a farmer's son, self-taught, and only twenty years of age.

CHAPTER XXII.

A BLIND INSTRUCTOR

Mrs. Edwards did not readily reconcile herself to the loss of her faithful serving-maid Ales. Still less readily to the substitution of Cate, for, now that she was the wife of Rhys, she took another footing on the floor than when she was Cate Griffith, and she allowed no one to forget that the farm was left to Rhys by his grandfather's will, and, therefore, he was master, the implication being that she was mistress.

Hitherto Mrs. Edwards had been head and front of everything. As she had told Mr. Pryse, 'she was the farmer.' It was for her to dictate, for others to obey.

Now, as she had foreseen, the marriage of Rhys had subverted all that. Not that Rhys himself had changed his manner towards his mother, but he had long held himself competent to manage the farm without guidance; and when there was no capable Ales at hand to anticipate her wishes, and even the orders she gave to her own daughter Jonet were apt to be disputed and reversed by the young wife, she felt much like a queen deposed. She did not, however, surrender her sceptre willingly, but pursued her own course as of old. As little was Jonet disposed to take orders from her sister-in-law.

The consequent result was confusion, mismanagement, and altercation, Cate's voice having suddenly grown shrill and loud.

Of course Rhys took the part of his wife – though dubiously – whilst William and Davy enlisted on the side of the mother or Jonet; so that, although the oppressor was no more, and the sun of prosperity was rising over Brookside Farm, peace spread her weary wings for flight.

Outside, Jonet had an ally in Thomas Williams, and he did his best to console her with the prospect of escape to wifehood, and a home of her own – a home for which her own distaff and her mother's spinning-wheel were busily making preparation.

Hot-tempered William was, however, the first to shake the dust of the old home from his well-shod feet.

It was after a sharp altercation over the vexed question of home rule, which had left Jonet and his mother both in tears, that he startled them by saying —

'Well, well, really, I did never be expecting to turn my back on the old place with pleasure. But I am going to Cardiff next week, to be doing some building for Mr. Morris; and, look you, it is rejoicing I shall be to leave all this noise and contention behind.'

'Going away!' was the breathless, general exclamation, with varying addenda.

''Deed, and sure you're welcome! You do be the most obstinate and worst-tempered of the whole lot,' from Cate.

'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 stitched 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 space. 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,' assented 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 passed 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 passage 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, dowlas14 sheets, and a dark blue woollen coverlet, but he had never been accustomed to anything better; and there was a diamond-paned casement, with a table in front, on which was a coarse earthenware basin and ewer, and, hung against the wall, a looking-glass 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 passage was opened, and a room with a larger casement 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 shells.

'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 substituted 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 assistance 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 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.