62 Spring 



is extremely irksome ; but the only reliefs to it con- 

 sist of digging and of throwing up the lumps from 

 stage to stage. Except for his iron tools, he is no 

 better off than the first savage who dug out a pit ; 

 his results come directly from the exercise of his 

 muscle ; he owes nothing whatever to science. 



It is more difficult to get out of the pit than it 

 was to get in. Little footholds have been cut in the 

 chalky sides, and by their aid one has to scale the 

 great ladder as best one can. On the top you will be 

 glad to sit and philosophise a little on the detached 

 and quiet existence of the human rabbit who is bur- 

 rowing down below. The agricultural labourer who 

 complains that the country is so grossly dull leads a 

 wild and stirring life in comparison with the flint- 

 digger, who in solitude and perpetual twilight pursues 

 his craft ; and yet I think the latter is the happier 

 and more contented of the two. 



The second part of the work is done under vastly 

 different circumstances. In the knapping-shed to 

 which the flints are carted some half-dozen men all 

 sit and work together, or rather in twos, for it is a 

 trade of partnership. The typical knapper is a deft 

 pale-faced little man, usually with several bits of 

 sticking-plaster disfiguring his countenance ; for when 

 the flint is sparkling under his hammer ever and anon 

 a tiny chip takes him on the nose, or the cheek, or the 

 eyeball. One whose business it is to break up the 

 blocks of flint sits beside a heap of them on a three- 



