“Scattered over the swamp itself and on the unfinished sections of the embankment were groups of labourers working with spades and barrows, and, overseeing them, nearby to me, a young man of energetic carriage, well dressed in a brown garment, rich, but suitable to his work and girded. He had no sandals, for they would have impeded him on such ground; he bore an inlaid ebon staff with an ivory hand-grasp, and was occupied, when I first saw him, in shouting a new order to a distant group of diggers. His back was towards me. He had not seen my approach.
“As he turned, to proceed along the levee towards another group, he caught sight of my mule and myself and at once started to run, pouring out when he had reached us a mixed flood of greetings, warnings, and varied exclamations.
“‘We were to beware of the embankment! It was but just raised and was not yet stable! Was it not a fine work? Half-completed, as we saw it, it had taken but three months. Did I notice how thoroughly it had cut off the river? Had I not found it firm as I came up it from the bank? Would I be pleased to go carefully lest the edge should be injured? ... and so on.
“It was clear from such a salutation with what sort of man I had to deal. Here was an Enthusiast. It is a character of the utmost service to the Man of Affairs. He was of that sort which is labelled in our indexes as ‘The Constructive Wild Man,’ and happy is the Captain of Industry who chances upon such a one. He was perhaps thirty years of age, strong, short in stature, very dark in complexion, with steady but eager eyes, and such an expression of grasp, resolution, and immediate decision as should lead to a fortune, not perhaps for himself but at least for anyone who knew how to use him; for he was as keen as a boy upon the matter occupying him, and therefore careless for the moment of all other things.
“I answered him with a mixture of sympathy, caution, and gravity, which I was glad to see impressed him. I praised his work vaguely but courteously enough. I asked the names of the river and the town, and also his own. All these he gave me; and then asked me whether I would not share the mid-day meal he was about to take. I said I should be overjoyed to do so: and so I was, for I saw the prospect of refreshment at the charges of another, an opportunity, which remember—my dear nephews—is never to be neglected by men of clear commercial judgment.
“He led me, followed by the mule, to a shady place where a few trees stood on a drier part of the enclosed plain. There we found excellent meats, and there we reclined for above an hour, during the whole of which he did not cease to overwhelm me with description, praise, and prospect of the great enterprise in which he was wholly absorbed.
“This horseshoe bend, he told me, outside his native town, had never been utilized. It was flooded in the spring when the snow melted on the distant hills; the rest of the year it was a mixture of dry cracked mud and marsh, breeding fever, full of insects and ill-airs at evening. He had been left an orphan and was apprenticed to a maker of mill-wheels, such as were used in the stream above the city. One day the idea had occurred to him that such instruments could be used not only for the grinding of corn but for the raising of water from ditches and therefore for draining.
“With that his grand project had rushed into his mind. Why should not the marsh, which had so far been so serious a trouble, be turned to the profit of the city? An embankment would keep out floods, drains cut through the enclosed marsh would collect the water and dry the whole. These drains could be regularly pumped out by wheels which the outer stream would turn, and a large area of good land would be added to the crowded town. On this new buildings could be raised and gardens laid out, to the great profit of all the citizens. For the city was increasing in importance, people were flocking in, there was crowding and difficulty and high rents, yet no place over which to expand between the marsh and the hills.
“He had approached the council and headmen with this project. They had hesitated long. At last they had grudgingly advanced from the taxes a sum which he warned them was inadequate. Nevertheless he had set to work, and the results were now before me. The swamp was still swamp, the embankment not completed, of the drains not more than a sixth were dug, and the whole was a confusion of mud-heaps, apparent ruin and chaos, very unattractive to the eye and very unpromising, in its outward aspect at least, of any result. It had all the character of waste and folly—yet a sum of money, small in comparison with many private resources and insignificant in the budget of the town, would suffice to crown the whole and to replace the wretched prospect of unfinished labour by a noble plain of rich gardens and new houses. But the headmen of the city were now disgusted and would vote no more. Rather did they threaten him with penalties for his loss of public pence.