XIII 



NEVER was the ' blackthorn winter ' better illustrated than 

 it has been this season (1902). The blackthorns T^ BIack . 

 began to deck themselves in their frosty splen- thorn 

 dour in the third week of April; the chilly nights and 

 cold winds, in which they seem to revel, have prolonged 

 their period of bloom almost to encounter the greater 

 glory of the hawthorn, so that, returning to the southern 

 Scottish uplands at Whitsuntide, I find the snow which 

 still whitens the higher crests reflected in the valley, and 

 along the rocky river-banks from the sloe bushes which 

 there do greatly abound. Moreover, the blossom is more 

 abundant than I remember to have seen it before ; to be 

 followed, doubtless, by myriads of sloes ' buckies,' as the 

 country folk call them hereabouts an unkindly fruit, 

 rejected alike by beast and bird. I doubt whether even 

 pigs, with their philosophic indifference to quality in 

 diet, could be induced to partake of sloes ; only man, the 

 omnivorous, indefatigable in search of novel sensation for 

 his palate, and reckless as to the ruin that may be wrought 

 in his digestive apparatus, has invented an astringent 

 abomination known as ' sloe-gin,' in which certain persons 

 profess to perceive delicacy of flavour. In my opinion it 

 were more rightly named ' slow-poison 'slow, but very 

 sure. 



G 



