outraged crow appeared determined to have his revenge.

Then the storm broke on me, and so fiercely did the rain and
sleet thrash me that, fearing a cold soaking, I fled before it
to the rim of the plain, where the wheatear had vanished, and
saw a couple of hundred yards down on the smooth steep slope a
thicket of dwarf trees. It was, the only shelter in sight,
and to it I went, to discover much to my disgust that the
trees were nothing but elders. For there is no tree that
affords so poor a shelter, especially on the high open downs,
where the foliage is scantier than in other situations and
lets in the wind and rain in full force upon you.

But the elder affects me in two ways. I like it on account of
early associations, and because the birds delight in its
fruit, though they wisely refuse to build in its branches; and
I dislike it because its smell is offensive to me and its
berries the least pleasant of all wild fruits to my taste. I
can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its season, poison or
not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh acorn, and
the rowan, which some think acrid; but the elderberry I can't
stomach.

How comes it, I have asked more than once, that this poor tree
is so often seen on the downs where it is so badly fitted to
be and makes so sorry an appearance with its weak branches
broken and its soft leaves torn by the winds? How badly it
contrasts with the other trees and bushes that flourish on the
downs--furze, juniper, holly, blackthorn, and hawthorn!