Over all these came a sweet, dry smell of salubrity which the place had not known since the sediments of the Mississippi first lifted it from the sea.
But its owner did not build.

Over the willow-brakes, and down the vista of the open street, bright new houses, some singly, some by ranks, were prying in upon the old man's privacy.

They even settled down toward his southern side.

First a wood-cutter's hut or two, then a market gardener's shanty, then a painted cottage, and all at once the faubourg had flanked and half surrounded him and his dried-up marsh.
Ah! then the common people began to hate him.

"The old tyrant!" "You don't mean an old _tyrant_ ?" "Well, then, why don't he build when the public need demands it?
What does he live in that unneighborly way for ?" "The old pirate!" "The old kidnapper!" How easily even the most ultra Louisianians put on the imported virtues of the North when they could be brought to bear against the hermit.