330 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



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. 



" Do ! " she exclaimed rather fiercely, " I'm going to 

 do nothing with it ! I've made elderberry wine years 

 and years and years. So did my mother; so did my 

 grandmother ; so did everybody in my time. And very 

 good it were, too, I tell 'e, in cold weather in winter, 

 made hot. It warmed your inside. But nobody wants 

 it now, and nobodyll help me with it. How 'm I to 

 do it keep the birds off and all! I've been fighting 

 'em years and years, and now I can't do it no longer. 

 And what's the good of doing it if the wine's not good 

 enough for people to drink? Nothing's good enough 

 now unless you buys it in a public-house or a shop. It 

 wasn't so when I were a gill. We did everything for 

 ourselves then, and it were better, I tell 'e. We kep' a 

 pig then so did every one ; and the pork and bacon it 

 were good, not like what we buy now. We put it 

 mostly in brine, and let it be for months ; and when we 

 took it out and biled it, it were red as a cherry and 

 white as milk, and it melted just like butter in your 

 mouth. That's what we ate in my time. But you 

 can't keep a pig now oh dear, no ! You don't have 

 him more 'n a day or two before the sanitary man looks 

 in. He says he were passing and felt a sort of smell 



