ELGIN
we were in the humor to moralize on modern degeneracy among the ruins. A distillery is now the near neighbor of the cathedral. Below the broken walls, still rich with beautiful carving, new and old gravestones, as at Iona, stand side by side. In nave and transepts knights lie on old tombstones, under canopies carved with leaves and flowers; here and there in the graveyard without are moss-grown slabs with the death's-head and graceful lettering of the seventeenth century; near by are ugly blocks from the modern stone-mason. The guide-book quotes some of the old inscriptions; but it omits one of late date, which should, however, receive the greatest honor—that of the man who cared for the ruins with reverence and love until the Government took them in charge. These ruins are very beautiful. Indeed, nowhere does the religious vandalism of the past seem more monstrous than in Scotland. The Government official asked us to write our names in the Visitors' Book; he made it seem a compliment by saying that it was not everybody's name he wanted. We thought him a man of much greater intelligence than the Glasgow verger. He could see, he said, that J—— knew something about cathedrals and architecture.
We found nothing else of interest in Elgin. It had a prosperous look, and we saw not a trace of the old timbered houses with projecting upper stories of which Dr. Johnson writes. The remainder of our stay we spent in a restaurant near the station, where we talked politics with a farmer. He lectured us on free-trade. Scotch farmers cry for protection, he said, but they don't know what it means. Free-trade is good for the bulk of the people, and what would protection do for the farmer? Nothing! If he got higher prices, the landlord would say, Now you can afford to pay me higher rent, and he would pocket the few shillings' difference.
We talked with many other farmers in the east of Scotland. Sometimes we journeyed with them in railway-carriages; sometimes we breakfasted and dined with them in hotels. They all had much to say about protection and free-trade, and we found that Henry George had been among them. Their ideas of his doctrine of the nationalization of the land were at times curious and original. I remember a farmer from Aberdeenshire who told us that he believed in it thoroughly, and then explained that it would give each man permission, if he had money enough, to buy out his landlord.
After our lunch at Elgin we again got through a day's work in less than an hour. We went by train to