rabbit-warren of two hundred and fifty acres into his hands; stocked ten
acres of marsh land with geese; and exchanged some of the best part of
Clover-hill for a share in a common covered with thistles. He planted a
considerable tract of land, with a degree of expedition that astonished
all the neighbourhood: but it was remarked that the fences were not
quite sufficient; especially as the young trees were in a dangerous
situation, being surrounded by land stocked with sheep and horned
cattle. Wright warned him of the danger; but he had no time this year,
he said, to complete the fences: the men who tended his sheep might
easily keep them from the plantation for this season, and the next
spring he purposed to dig such a ditch round the whole as should secure
it for ever. He was now extremely busy, making jackets for his sheep,
providing willows for his decoy, and gorse and corn for his geese: the
geese, of which he had a prodigious flock, were not yet turned into
their fen, because a new scheme had occurred to Marvel, relative to some
reeds with which a part of this fen was covered; on these reeds myriads
of starlings were accustomed to roost, who broke them down with their
weight. Now Marvel knew that such reeds would be valuable for thatching,
and with this view he determined to drive away the starlings; but the
measures necessary for this purpose would frighten his friends, the
geese, and therefore he was obliged to protect and feed them in his
farm-yard, at a considerable expense, whilst he was carrying on the war
with the starlings. He fired guns at them morning and evening, he sent
up rockets and kites with fiery tails, and at last he banished them; but
half his geese, in the mean time, died for want of food; and the women
and children, who plucked them, stole one quarter of the feathers, and
one half of the quills, whilst Marvel was absent letting up rockets in
the fen.

The rabbit-warren was, however, to make up for all other losses: a