re--a piece of land hilly in the middle, and
surrounded by rivers. The Trent runs on the east side of it; and some
smaller rivers formerly flowed round the rest of it, joining the Humber
to the north. These rivers carried down a great deal of mud with them
to the Humber, and the tides of the Humber washed up a great deal of
sea-sand into the mouths of the rivers; so that the waters could not for
some time flow freely, and were at last prevented from flowing away at
all: they sank into the ground, and made a swamp of it--a swamp of many
miles round the hilly part of the Isle of Axholme.

This swamp was long a very dismal place. Fish, and water-birds, and
rats inhabited it: and here and there stood the hut of a fowler; or a
peat-stack raised by the people who lived on the hills round, and who
obtained their fuel from the peat-lands in the swamp. There were also,
sprinkled over the district, a few very small houses--cells belonging to
the Abbey of Saint Mary, at York. To these cells some of the monks from
Saint Mary's had been fond of retiring, in old times, for meditation and
prayer, and doing good in the district round; but when the soil became
so swampy as to give them the ague as often as they paid a visit to
these cells, the monks left off their practice of retiring hither; and
their little dwellings stood empty, to be gradually overgrown with green
moss and lank weeds, which no hand cleared away.

At last a Dutchman, having seen what wonders were done in his own
country by good draining, thought he could render this district fit to
be inhabited and cultivated; and he made a bargain with the king about
it. After spending much money, and taking great pains, he succeeded.
He drew the waters off into new channels, and kept them there by
sluices, and by carefully watching the embankments he had raised. The
land which was left dry was manured and cultivated, till, instead of a
reedy and mossy swamp, there were fields of clover and of corn, and
meadows of the finest grass, with cattle and sheep grazing in large
numbers. The dwellings that were still standing were made into
farm-houses, and new farmhouses were built. A church here, and a chapel
there was cleaned, and warmed, and painted, and opened for worship; and
good roads crossed the district into all the counties near.

Instead of being pleased with this change, the people of the country
were angry and discontented. Those who lived near had been long
accusto