of the agricultural distress--not the high rent of agricultural land.
George Hope was a striking personality. When my friend J. C. Woods was
minister at St. Mark's Unitarian Church, Edinburgh, Mr. Hope used to be
called the Bishop, though he lived 16 miles off. When the first Mrs.
Woods died, leaving an infant son, it was Mrs. Hope who cared for it
till it could go to his relatives in Ireland. Later he stood for
Parliament himself. In the paper I wrote over the name of Edward Wilson
for The Fortnightly I noted how the House of Commons represented the
people--or misrepresented them. The House consisted of peers and sons
of peers, military and naval officers, bankers, brewers, and
landownership was represented enormously, but there were only two
tenant farmers in the House. It was years after my return to Australia
that I heard of his unsuccessful candidature, and that when he sought
to take another lease of Fentonbarns, he was told that under no
circumstances would his offer be entertained. Fentonbarns had been
farmed by, three generations of Hopes for 100 years, and to no owner by
parchment titles could it have been more dear. George Hope's friend,
Russell, of The Scotsman, fulminated against the injustice of refusing
a lease to the foremost agriculturist in Scotland--and when you say
that you may say of the United Kingdom--because the tenant held certain
political opinions and had the courage to express them. My uncle
Handyside, however, always maintained that his neighbour was the most
honourable man in business that he knew, and far from being an atheist
or even a deist, he had family prayers, and on the occasion of a death
in the family, the funeral service was most impressive. He was one of
the salt of the earth, and the atmosphere was clearer around him for
his presence.

But I must give some space to my visit to Melrose, my childhood's home.
My father's half-sister Janet Reid was alive and though her two sons
were, one at St. Kitts and the other at Grand Canary, she lived with an
old husband and her only daughter in Melrose still.. I can never forget
the look of tender pity cast on me as I was sitting in our old seat in
church, looking at seats filled by another generation. The
paterfamilias, so wonderfully like his father of 1839, and sons and
daughters, sitting in the place of uncles and aunts settled elsewhere.
They grieved that I had been banished from the romantic associations
and the high civilization of