Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
from them. I remember hearing of some nuns who 
devoted themselves to this industry — a somewhat curious 
one surely for the holy sisters, though perhaps scarcely more 
so than Chartreuse-making for monks, as described by 
Daudet in his most amusing little “ Contes Choisies.” I 
have also heard of an attempt by some old-time Scottish 
dames, but I fear it was not appreciated, as the recipe has 
not become an heirloom. 
The Blackthorn is out in abundance now ; I think it is 
rather late. In England in old days a sort of wine was 
made out of the berries, called “ Winterpick wine.” It must 
have been very sour. Village children sometimes pick 
and eat the berries. I think it is in “ The Farmer’s Boy ” 
Bloomfield describes a bird-laddie roasting the berries. 
Country mothers here sometimes make preserves out of sloes 
and scrog-apples, and the children like it. It is always cold 
here when the Blackthorn blooms. “ Blackthorn winter ” 
we say. Yet how pretty it is ! — like a light fall of snow all 
over the banks or a lingering snow wreath. The Stock- 
dove is nesting now in the woods by the Castle Loch. 
Cushats they call them here, a very old name for the 
Woodpigeon. I have heard this bird was quite unknown 
here twenty years ago. The Woodpigeons have been 
cooing about this place. I saw one prospecting the other 
day around the big beech. They used to be shot a good 
deal hereabout formerly, when they came in flocks as 
visitors from Norroway over the foam, thirty years ago ; 
indeed they became such a pest that the present flourish- 
ing Agricultural Society owes its origin to an association 
formed for the wholesale destruction of Woodpigeons. 
May 15. — I saw the most charming border of gold- 
coloured and dark red Wallflowers- — Bloody Warriors as 
they are called, I think, in Sussex ; they were in the high- 
walled garden of an old house near here, and looked quite 
beautiful. There was also a row of lovely many-coloured 
Oxslips (Ang.-Sax. oxanslyppe ) and Polyanthus. I delight in 
any flower of the Primrose tribe, they are so fresh and sweet 
and countrified, one cannot imagine them in town smoke. 
134 
