The dealers from Muirtown and outlying strangers from Kildrummie bore themselves after the time-honoured manners of a roup--a fine blend of jocose gaiety and business curiosity; but the Glen and stragglers from the upper districts were not in a roup mood, and seemed to have something on their minds. They greeted Burnbrae respectfully, and took a spare refreshment with marked solemnity. Their very faces chilled Jock when he began operations, and reduced to hopeless confusion an opening joke he had prepared on the way from Kildrummie. This severity was hard on Jock, for he was understood to have found his rôle in auctioneering, and a roup was the great day of his life. He was marked out for his office by the fact that he had been twice bankrupt as a farmer, and by a gift of speech which bordered on the miraculous. There were times when he was so carried on political questions in the Muirtown Inn that the meat flew from the end of his fork, and a Drumtochty man, with an understood reference to Jock's eloquence, could only say “Sall” at the Junction, to which another would reply, “He 's an awfu' wratch.” This tribute to Jock's power rested, as is evident, less on the exact terms of the eulogy than on his monopoly of the Drumtochty imagination for two hours. His adroitness in throwing strong points into relief and infirmities into the shade, as well as his accurate knowledge of every man's farming affairs and his insight into their peculiarities as buyers, were almost Satanic. People who did not intend to buy, and would have received no credit if they had, went to hear Jock selling a horse, and left fully rewarded. Indeed, if Whinnie suddenly chuckled on the way home, and did not proceed farther than “It cowes a',” he was understood to be chewing the cud of Jock's humour, and was excused from impossible explanations. Jock referred to the Burnbrae roup as long as he lived, and gave incidents with dramatic force in the train, but every one knows he had nothing to do with its success. “Ye needna waste time speaking the day, Jock,” Drumsheugh advised before they began on the potatoes; “pit up the articles, and we 'ill see tae the bids.” Which Drumtochty did without one slack moment, from the potatoes, which fetched one pound an acre more than had been known in the parish, to a lot of old iron which a Kildrummie blacksmith got at something under cost price. People hesitated to award praise where all had done well, but the obstinacy of Hillocks, which compelled a Muirtown horse-dealer to give forty-two pounds for a young horse, and Whinnie's part in raising the prices for fat cattle, are still mentioned. When Jock came down from his table in the field, he was beyond speech, and Drumtochty regarded Drumsheugh with unfeigned admiration.