THE MARSH 181 



THE PLOUGHING OF THE MARSH 



The end had come at last. The fathers of the 

 hamlet sat in council ; and progress is a fearful thing 

 with money to be had at three-pounds-ten per cent. 

 The fiat went forth : "Let the dry land appear! (and 

 charge it on the rates)." And it was so. 



What grievance have I ? they may ask. Had 

 not the whole parish for years past cried out that the 

 spot was noisome, pestilential ; and men, otherwise 

 of Christian habit, risen at night to slam the window 

 on a south wind, cursing them in their beds? Had 

 not they, conservators of ancient custom, withstood, 

 as long as might be, the zealots of this new-fangled 

 cult of health ? Time was men took their ague with 

 their beer, feared God, and paid the tithe ; but now, 

 our youthful baldheads were all for health, and men 

 whose fathers drove a team afield at four-score 

 clamoured for education by the rates. Something 

 had to be done. The Board School (De mortuis 

 nihil . . . ) had gone by the board. The great 

 Local Board itself had been turned round, receiving 

 on its back a more august inscription than ever 

 adorned the face of it. 



And so, with a sense of dizzy elevation, the newly 

 constituted Urban District Council faced the agenda 

 Electric Lighting and Traction ; Light Railways 

 and Amalgamation ; Technical Instruction and the 



