54 Idylls of the Field. 



hands on the ' silver ' mines of Mendip ; and it is 

 barely half a century since the palmy days of these 

 now ruinous villages, when every man who worked for 

 his own hand could raise a pound's worth of metal in 

 a day. 



But the ore was poor. It would not repay the cost 

 of machinery, and when the veins ran too deep to be 

 easily managed by manual labour, they were followed 

 no further. 



Thus the hills are scarred from end to end with the 

 abandoned workings. Thus the mining villages have 

 fallen on evil times, and the ' rugged miners ' are now 

 little more than a memory. 



One curious relic of their craft survives. The 

 divining-rod, constantly employed in bygone days in 

 tracing the course of veins of metal, is even in our 

 time by no means forgotten. 



There are still men who can ' dowse ' for ore or 

 water. Still before a well is sunk the aid of the 

 1 dowsing-rod ' is called in to make sure of a suitable 

 spot. 



Over all the valley there grows a very jungle of 

 hazel and briar, with scattered oak trees and clumps 

 of blackthorn. 



Among the thickets badgers still find shelter. 



On heaps of stone, whose hard edges are blurred 

 with moss and fringed with graceful ferns, vipers bask 

 in the long summer afternoons, and warm their dusky 

 armour in the sun. 



