The forms of clay were
there. Alas! I asked in vain of your English magnates for the fire
from heaven to animate the earth, or rather I would have brought it,
and I suffered."
It was amusing to see how much delighted honest Harold was with this
letter, and how much honoured he seemed by his dear old Prometesky
having spent so much time and thought upon writing to him. It fired
him with doubled ardour to investigate the Hydriot Company, and he
could hardly wait till a reasonable hour the next day. Then he took
Eustace down with him and returned quite talkative (for him) with the
discoveries he had made, from one of the oldest workmen who had
become disabled from the damp of working in the clay.
The Company had been set up by a clever speculating young attorney,
but the old man remembered that "that there foreign gentleman, the
same as was sent to foreign parts with the poor young squires," was
"always a-puddling about in it; and they did say as how he tried to
get my lord, and Squire Horsman, and Squire Stympson to see to
setting up summut there; but they wasn't never for 'speriments, and
there was no more talk of it not till that there young Crabbe got
hold, they say, of some little images as he had made, and never
rested till he had got up the Company, and begun the works, having
drawn in by his enthusiasm half the tradesmen and a few of the
gentlemen of the place.
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