I have previously mentioned old Viper as a family friend, but like all dogs he had his faults. He acquired a liking for new laid eggs and hunted the rickyard for nests in the straw. My bailiff determined to cure him; he carefully blew an egg, and filled it with a mixture of which mustard was the chief component. Viper was tempted to sample the egg, which he accepted with a great show of innocence; the effect when he had broken the shell was electrical; he fled with downcast tail and complete dejection, and nothing would ever induce him to touch an egg again. The whirligig of time has indeed brought its revenge in the matter of the market value of eggs. In Worcestershire we have had to give them away at eighteen or twenty for a shilling; last (1918-1919) winter we sold some at 7s. a dozen, and many more at 5s. CHAPTER XIV. ORCHARDS--APPLES--CIDER--PERRY. "Lo! sweetened with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow Drops in a silent autumn night." --_The Lotus-Eaters_. A curious old punning Latin line, illustrating various meanings of the word _malus_, an apple, seems appropriate, as a commencement, to writing about apples; it is I think very little known, and too good to be forgotten. _Malo, malo, malo, malo_; it is translated thus: "_Malo_, I would rather be, _Malo_, in an apple-tree, _Malo_, than a bad boy, _Malo_, in adversity." The fruit was an important item on the Aldington Manor Farm, and when later I bought an adjoining farm of seventy acres with orcharding, and had planted nine acres of plum trees, my total fruit area amounted to about thirty acres. There was a saying in the neighbourhood which pleased me greatly, that "it was always harvest at Aldington"; it was not so much intended to signify that there was always something coming in, as to convey an impression of the constant activity and employment of labour that continued throughout the seasons without intermission, though it was true that with the diversity of my crops and stock, there was a more or less continuous return. I had a shock when an old friend in a neighbouring village spoke of me as a "pomologist," the title seemed much too distinguished, and personally I have never claimed the right to anything better than the rather pretty old title of "orchardist."