The elder is a common tree here, but at the cottage we had, I think, the biggest crop of fruit in the neighbourhood; and it now occurs to me that the vast old chalk pit in which the trees grew has not yet been described, and so far has only been once mentioned incidentally. Yet it was a great place, but a few yards away at the side of the old lime trees and the small protecting fence. The entrance to it and its wide floor was on a level with the green valley, while at its upper end it formed a steep bank forty feet high. It was doubtless a very old pit, with sides which had the appearance of natural cliffs and were overhung and draped with thorn-trees, masses of old ivy, and traveller's joy. Inside it was a pretty tangled wilderness; on the floor many tall annuals flourished--knapweed and thistle and dark mullein and teazel, six to eight feet high. Then came some good-sized trees--ash and oak--and thorn, bramble and elder in masses. It was a favourite breeding-place of birds of many species; even the red-backed shrike had nested there within forty yards of a human habitation, and the kingfisher had safely reared his young, unsuspected by the barbarous water-keeper. The pit, too, was a shelter in cold {300} rough weather and a roosting-place at night. Now the fruit was ripe, it was a banqueting-place as well, and the native birds were joined by roving outsiders, missel-thrushes in scores, and starlings in hundreds. The noise they produced--a tangle of so many various semi-musical voices--sounded all day long; and until the abundant fruit had all been devoured the chalk pit was a gigantic green and white bowl full to overflowing with sunshine, purple juice, and melody. The biggest crop of this fruit, out of the old chalk pit, was in the garden of a cottage in the village, close to the river, occupied by an old married couple, hard workers still with spade and hoe, and able to make a Living by selling the produce of their garden. It was a curious place; fruit trees and bushes, herbs, vegetables, flowers, all growing mixed up anyhow, without beds or walks or any line of demarcation between cultivated plants and brambles and nettles on either side and the flags and sedges at the lower end by the river. In the midst of the plot, just visible among the greenery, stood the small, old, low-roofed thatched cottage, where the hens were free to go in and lay their eggs under the bed or in any dark corner they preferred. A group of seven or eight old elder-trees grew close to the cottage, their branches bent and hanging with the weight of the purpling clusters. "What are you going to do with the fruit?" I asked the old woman; and this innocent question raised a tempest in her breast, for I had unwittingly touched on a sore subject. {301} [Sidenote: Past and present times]