fenman

The details are perhaps dull; they would certainly be out of place here; the result is grand, a colossal gain for humanity which can best be realized and valued, be admired most cordially and warmly, as one rolls along solid roads where the Fenman of old stalked gingerly on stilts.

As for the merrymaking on the ice, the friendly visits and the like, the chances are that they were as much the products of a happy imagination as the ancient Fenman's joy in the wild north-easter.

Still the Fenman knew the life, and he knew his powers.

It stood to reason, from the Fenman's point of view, that to drain the Fens would be to leave him without the only occupation for which he was fit; it probably never occurred to him that he might adapt himself to altered circumstances and become a regular worker, tied to fixed hours, instead of an amphibious wanderer, fowling and fishing when he pleased, or when necessity drove him to exertion.

His Welsh sounding name bears witness to his being a fenman of British ancestry.