each side, and chained them together with chain-cables, and
so confined the slippery soil. They drove these piles, tall
beech-trees, 20 feet into the earth, and at this day every train
passes over tons of chain-cables hidden beneath the ballast. The
world yet remembers the gigantic cost of the Box Tunnel, and how
heaven and earth were moved to get the line open; and at last it was
open, but at what a cost!--a cost that hung like a millstone round
the neck of the company, till a man rose into power who had the
talent of administration, and that man was the very companion of
Brunel whom we saw lunching among the furze-bushes. Reckless as the
expenditure was, one cannot but admire the determination which
overcame every obstacle. For the great line a workshop was needed,
and that workshop was built at Swindon. The green fields were
covered with forges, the hedges disappeared to make way for cottages
for the workmen. The workmen required food--tradesmen came and
supplied that food--and Swindon rose as Chicago rose, as if by
magic. From that day to this additions have been made, and other
departments concentrated upon this one spot, till at the present
time the factory covers a space equal to that of a moderate farm,
and employs nearly four thousand workmen, to whom three hundred
thousand pounds are yearly paid, whereby to purchase their daily
bread. But at that early stage the difficulty was to find
experienced workmen, and still greater to discover men who could
superintend them. For these it was necessary to go up into the
shrewd North, which had already foreseen the demand that must arise,
and had partially educated her children in the new life that was
about to dawn on the world; and so it is that to this time the names
of those who are in authority over this army of workers carry with
them in their sound a strong flavour of the heather and the brae,
and seem more in accordance with ideas of 'following the wild deer'
than of a dwelling in the midst of the clangour and smoke.

All these new inhabitants of the hitherto deserted fields had to be
lodged, and in endeavouring to solve this problem the company were
induced to try an experiment which savoured not a little of
communism, though not so intended. A building was erected which was
locally called the 'barracks,' and it well deserved the name, for at
one time as many as perhaps five hundred men found shelter in it. It
was a vast place, with innumerable rooms and corrid