When Telford had completed his apprenticeship as a stonemason, he remained for some time at Langholm working as a journeyman, his wages being _eighteenpence_ per diem.[37] The first bridge masonry on which he was engaged was the erection of a structure over the Esk at Langholm to connect the old with the new town. Mr. Smiles, in his 'Lives of the Engineers,' tells a good story in connection with this bridge. Telford's master, one Thompson, was bound by contract to maintain it for a period of seven years. Not long after the completion of the structure an unusually high flood swept along the valley, and Thompson's wife, Tibby, knowing the terms of her husband's contract, was in a state of great alarm lest the fabric should be carried away by the torrent. In her distress she thought of Telford, and calling out, "Oh, we'll be ruined--we'll be ruined! where's Tammy Telfer--where's Tammy? send in search of him." When he came running up, Tibby exclaimed, "Oh, Tammy, they're been on the brig and they say it's shaking! It'll be doon." "Never you heed them, Tibby," said Telford, clapping her on the shoulder, "there's nae fear o' the brig--I like it a' the better that it shakes; it proves it's weel put thegither." Tibby's fears were not, however, so easily allayed, and asserting that she heard the brig "rumlin," she ran up and set her back against it to keep it from falling. Whether Tibby's zealous support to the bridge in this instance was of any avail or no, Telford's opinion of the soundness of the structure has been proved by its withstanding the storms of nearly a century. At this early period of his life, Telford was remarkable for his elastic spirits and good humour, and in his native district of Eskdale was long remembered as 'laughing Tam.' His favourite pursuits were not as yet scientific but literary, and he acquired some distinction as a poet. He wrote in the homely style of Ramsay and Ferguson, and used to contribute small pieces to Ruddiman's 'Weekly Magazine,' under the signature of 'Eskdale Tam.' One of his compositions, entitled 'Eskdale,' a short poem descriptive of the scenes of his early years, appeared in a provincial miscellany, and was subsequently reprinted at Shrewsbury, at the request of his friends, and ultimately inserted in the appendix to his life. Another pleasing fragment of his composition is given at the end of the first volume of Dr. Currie's 'Life and Works of Burns,' published at Liverpool in 1800; it is an extract from a poetical epistle sent by Telford, when at Shrewsbury, to the Ayrshire poet, recommending him to take up other subjects of a serious nature, similar to the 'Cottar's Saturday Night.'