III.—A DISPLENISHING SALE
DRUMTOCHTY, hoeing the turnips for the second time on a glorious day in early August, saw the Kildrummie auctioneer go up the left side of the Glen and down the right like one charged with high affairs. It was understood that Jock Constable could ride anything in the shape of a horse, and that afternoon he had got ten miles an hour out of an animal which had been down times without number, and whose roaring could be heard from afar. Jock was in such haste that he only smacked his lips as he passed our public-house, and waved his hand when Hillocks shouted, “Hoo's a' wi' ye?” from a neighbouring field. But he dismounted whenever he saw a shapely gate-post, and spent five minutes at the outer precincts of the two churches.
“It 'ill be a roup,” and Hillocks nodded to his foreman with an air of certitude; “a' wun-ner wha 's it is; some Kildrummie man, maist likely.”
When the advertising disease first broke out in the country, a Muirtown grocer with local connections disfigured our main road with his list of prices, till in a moment of incredible audacity he affixed a cheap tea advertisement to the Parish Kirk door, and was understood to have escaped penal servitude by offering an abject apology to Doctor Davidson, and contributing ten pounds for the poor of the parish. Constable's announcements were the only mural literature afterwards allowed in the Glen, and Jock prided himself on their grandeur. They were headed in large type “Displenishing Sale,” and those imposing words, which had never been heard in the ordinary speech of the Glen within the memory of man, were supported in the body of the document by “heifers,” “fat oxen,” “draught horses,” “agricultural implements,” and “dairy apparatus.” Jock had “cereals” in one bill, but yielded to public feeling, and returned to “oats and barley” as a concession to the condition of a semieducated people.
Persons, without imagination, used to carp at the grand style and demand explanations, but short of “cereals,” Jock carried the community.
“What gars Jock aye say 'Displenishing Sale'?” inquired Hillocks one day, after he had given ten minutes to a bill and done the more ambitious words in syllables. “An' what dis he mean by 'heifer'? A' ken the beasts on Milton as weel as ma ain, an' a' never heard tell o' 'heifer' ootside o' the Bible.”
“Ye're a doited (stupid) body, Hillocks,” said Jamie Soutar, who was always much tickled by Jock's efforts; “ye wudna surely expeck an unctioneer tae speak aboot roups, and div ye think yersel that quey soonds as weel as heifer? Gin ye hed naething but oor ain words on a post, naebody wud look twice at it, but this kind o' langidge solemnises ye an' maks ye think.”
“Man Jamie, a' never thocht o' that,” for this argument touched Hillocks closely, “an' a'm no sayin' but ye 're richt. Jock 's a gabby body an' no feared o' words.”
Constable made a point of publishing on Saturday as late as light would allow, so that his literature might burst upon the Glen on Sabbath morning with all the charm of a surprise. Whether a man came east or west, he had the benefit of three bills before he reached the kirk and settled down quietly to the one on the right hand pillar of the kirkyard gate. Less than this number of wayside editions would not have served the purpose, because there was a severe etiquette in reading. When Whinnie emerged on the main road and caught sight of “Displenishing Sale,” he would have been ashamed to cross or show any indecent curiosity. He only nodded and proceeded to settle the farm in his mind. The second bill, whose geography he mastered without stopping, verified his conclusion and left him free to run over in his mind the stock and crops that would be offered. A pause not exceeding one minute was allowed for the head of the house at the third bill to detect any gross mistake in his general review, but the examination of minute details was reserved for the large paper edition at the kirkyard. This was studied from the first word to the last in profound silence, but was rigidly excluded from direct quotation on Sabbath. When Whinnie joined the fathers he only referred to Milton's roup as a rumour that had reached his ears, and might have been discussed at length on any other day.
Drumsheugh, waking, as it were, from a reverie: