The Eskdale mason was evidently getting on, as he deserved to do. But he was not puffed up. To his Langholm friend he averred that "he would rather have it said of him that he possessed one grain of good nature or good sense than shine the finest puppet in Christendom." "Let my mother know that I am well," he wrote to Andrew Little, "and that I will print her a letter soon."*[7] For it was a practice of this good son, down to the period of his mother's death, no matter how much burdened he was with business, to set apart occasional times for the careful penning of a letter in printed characters, that she might the more easily be able to decipher it with her old and dimmed eyes by her cottage fireside at The Crooks. As a man's real disposition usually displays itself most strikingly in small matters--like light, which gleams the most brightly when seen through narrow chinks--it will probably be admitted that this trait, trifling though it may appear, was truly characteristic of the simple and affectionate nature of the hero of our story. The buildings at Portsmouth were finished by the end of 1786, when Telford's duties there being at an end, and having no engagement beyond the termination of the contract, he prepared to leave, and began to look about him for other employment. Footnotes for Chapter III. *[1] Robert and John Adam were architects of considerable repute in their day. Among their London erections were the Adelphi Buildings, in the Strand; Lansdowne House, in Berkeley Square; Caen Wood House, near Hampstead (Lord Mansfield's); Portland Place, Regent's Park; and numerous West End streets and mansions. The screen of the Admiralty and the ornaments of Draper's Hall were also designed by them. *[2] Long after Telford had become famous, he was passing over Waterloo Bridge one day with a friend, when, pointing to some finely-cut stones in the corner nearest the bridge, he said: "You see those stones there; forty years since I hewed and laid them, when working on that building as a common mason." *[3]Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated London, July, 1783. *[4] Mr., afterwards Sir William, Pulteney, was the second son of Sir James Johnstone, of Wester Hall, and assumed the name of Pulteney, on his marriage to Miss Pulteney, niece of the Earl of Bath and of General Pulteney, by whom he succeeded to a large fortune. He afterwards succeeded to the baronetcy of his elder brother James, who died without issue in 1797. Sir William Pulteney represented Cromarty, and afterwards Shrewsbury, where he usually resided, in seven successive Parliaments. He was a great patron of Telford's, as we shall afterwards find. *[5] Letter to Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Portsmouth, July 23rd, 1784. *[6] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Portsmouth Dockyard, Feb. 1, 1786. *[7] Ibid CHAPTER IV. BECOMES SURVEYOR FOR THE COUNTY OF SALOP.