Telford, or Telfer, is an old name in the same neighbourhood, commemorated in the well known border ballad of 'Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead.' Sir W. Scott says, in the 'Minstrelsy,' that "there is still a family of Telfers. residing near Langholm , who pretend to derive their descent from the Telfers of the Dodhead." A member of the family of "Pylis" above mentioned, is said to have migrated from Ecclefechan southward to Blackburn, and there founded the celebrated Peel family. *[4] We were informed in the valley that about the time of Telford's birth there were only two tea-kettles in the whole parish of Westerkirk, one of which was in the house of Sir James Johnstone of Wester Hall, and the other at "The Burn," the residence of Mr. Pasley, grandfather of General Sir Charles Pasley. CHAPTER II. LANGHOLM--TELFORD LEARNS THE TRADE OF A STONEMASON. The time arrived when young Telford must be put to some regular calling. Was he to be a shepherd like his father and his uncle, or was he to be a farm-labourer, or put apprentice to a trade? There was not much choice; but at length it was determined to bind him to a stonemason. In Eskdale that trade was for the most part confined to the building of drystone walls, and there was very little more art employed in it than an ordinarily neat-handed labourer could manage. It was eventually decided to send the youth--and he was now a strong lad of about fifteen--to a mason at Lochmaben, a small town across the hills to the westward, where a little more building and of a better sort--such as of farm-houses, barns, and road-bridges--was carried on than in his own immediate neighbourhood. There he remained only a few months; for his master using him badly, the high-spirited youth would not brook it, and ran away, taking refuge with his mother at The Crooks, very much to her dismay. What was now to be done with Tom? He was willing to do anything or go anywhere rather than back to his Lochmaben master. In this emergency his cousin Thomas Jackson, the factor or land-steward at Wester Hall, offered to do what he could to induce Andrew Thomson, a small mason at Langholm, to take Telford for the remainder of his apprenticeship; and to him he went accordingly. The business carried on by his new master was of a very humble sort. Telford, in his autobiography, states that most of the farmers' houses in the district then consisted of "one storey of mud walls, or rubble stones bedded in clay, and thatched with straw, rushes, or heather; the floors being of earth, and the fire in the middle, having a plastered creel chimney for the escape of the smoke; while, instead of windows, small openings in the thick mud walls admitted a scanty light." The farm-buildings were of a similarly wretched description.