The tradespeople of Friarton accepted Oliver as their champion for the time being, and prepared to go _en masse_ to hear him, in order to show he was their lecturer. He was not to have a mere handful of an audience, not even of the out-and-out gentry, but of the shabby-genteel, such as Mr. Fremantle was content to address. Oliver was to air his abilities and their college training, demonstrating that he was as far before a schoolmaster-parson like Fremantle in profane scholarship, as the shopkeepers’ pastor, Mr. Holland, was in advance of the clerk in holy orders in spiritual gifts. Old Dadd proved nearly the solitary defaulter. ‘I make a point, Mr. Oliver, of attending no lectures save those in the chapel on Sunday evenings,’ he explained. ‘Yes, yes, I understand you perfectly, sir, that you are to speak after shop hours, but that is the very time when I compare my invoices, make myself acquainted with the prices and read anything else I care to see in the papers. Lectures ain’t in my line, and I am too old a boy to take up with new courses, I leave ’em to the young people. Mrs. Dadd—not that she is so much younger, as, like the rest of the ladies, she would have us believe—and my son Jack will represent the family for its credit and yours.’ ‘If you care to see me, Mr. Oliver,’ said Mrs. Dadd, with her propensity to make herself scarce. ‘Of course he does,’ interrupted Jack; ‘even an old woman counts. You can thump with your umbrellar at the applause. Trust us for crying you up to the skies, Constable,’ was the cheerful assurance of Jack, who had never heard the verb _claquer_, or guessed its effect in metropolitan theatres. ‘If you’ll listen to me—that is all I want,’ said Oliver. ‘Oh! if it’s the independent dodge, and standing on your own merits, you’re after, we can be as quiet as mice,’ said Jack, a little offended at the indifferent reception of his pledge. ‘My dear, we are the most highly favoured of mortals,’ Mrs. Hilliard told Catherine at dinner. ‘Are we?’ asked Catherine, sceptically, looking at the partridge on her plate, as if she lamented its early, piteous fate, and did not know how to eat it. ‘My great-cousin Oliver—his surname should have been Cromwell, not Constable—will deign to hold forth for our benefit in the town-hall on Tuesday evening.’ ‘What about?’ enquired Catherine without much interest, still picking at her partridge as if she saw it flying over the stubble. ‘How should I know? On the duty of girls taking bread-sauce and pegging—not picking—at the food on their plates. I don’t know what will become of you, child; you despise bread-sauce, you are too fine for mint-sauce, and as for onion-sauce—to which I am base enough to incline, though I do it in strict privacy, as you will bear me witness, and avoid all respectable company for the rest of the day—I wonder you can sit in the same room with it and me.’