e railways he had constructed had
been accomplished rested in "Richard's" zeal and prowess. Though the sea
had covered their handiwork on the Vale of Clwyd railway half a dozen
times, "Richard" had stuck to his post, by day and night--"from two
o'clock on Monday morning till twelve o'clock on Saturday night, without
once going to bed." If they had made nineteen miles of the Oswestry and
Newtown track in thirteen months it was "in no small degree owing to
'Richard's' never-failing energy. He never grumbled, but always met me
with a pleasant smile." No wonder that Carno shouted its three times
three in "Richard's" honour and hardly less amazing that the good fellow,
on rising to reply, utterly broke down and could not complete a sentence
of his carefully prepared oration. "Never mind, 'Richard,'" exclaimed
Mr. David Howell, "that is more eloquent than a speech."

From Carno, Metcalfe and his engine were soon to proceed to make the
acquaintance of other friends and admirers further along the line.
Llanbrynmair was soon to be reached, and another writer in the local
Press is moved to compare its former remoteness, "verging close upon the
classic 'Ultima Thule' of the first Roman," with the new conditions.
"The railway," he says, "with its snorting, puffing and Vesuvian volumes
of clouds, now to a certain extent breaks upon the whilom monotony of
this valley among mountains; its aptly termed iron-horse (Mars-like, but
still in a placable mood) rolls majestically along, conveying the very
backbone of creation from the granite rock, ready trimmed, and requiring
but the cunning hand of the workman to fix the stones in their
appropriate place to span the meandering Jaen and Twymyn streams."

One of the bridges across the Twymyn, indeed, skilfully designed by Mr.
Piercy, with whom was associated Mr. George Owen, was a notable
structure. It consisted of three arches, its extreme height, 70 feet
above the rushing waters of this mountain torrent, the abutments being
large blocks of Talerddig stone and the arches turned in best Ruabon
brick. For, continues our chronicler, it was a highly satisfactory fact
for Welsh patriots to contemplate that Mr. Davies was "working his line
by means of Welsh materials, drawn from inexhaustible Welsh mountains,
his workmen are natives, the planning and workmanship is also native, and
he himself a thorough and spirited Welshman."

Less placable were some of the influences which began to exert