n I never learned.

At a very good Hallow Fair, I had forty small-horned Cabrach beasts and
forty small polled stirks standing alongside of each other. I had been
within 7s. 6d. a-head of selling them once or twice, when a stranger
priced them, a very well-to-do and apparently young man. My price was
L7, 7s. a-head for the eighty. He just took one look through them, and
said, "Well, I shall have them, and you meet me at the Black Bull at
eight o'clock, and I will pay you for them." It not being the _custom
of the trade_ to get all our askings, I was a little nervous about
my customer, but found he was all right. I met him at the Black Bull at
the hour mentioned. He was in great spirits, and paid me in Bank of
England notes.

Arthur Ritchie, Bithnie, a cattle-dealer from Aberdeen, used to tell
the following story: In a bad Hallow Fair, towards sunsetting, a
gentleman came round and asked the price of a lot of cattle. Arthur had
given him a large halter, and he got an offer which he accepted. It was
a great price for the market. The buyer refused afterwards to take
them, and my father was made umpire. The buyer said that a glimmer came
over his eyes, and he thought them better when he offered the price.
However, he got ashamed, and took the cattle. An old respected servant
of my own, who assisted me for years in the buying and selling of
cattle--James Elmslie, very well known here and in the south--had sold
twenty beasts very well at Hallow Fair for me. There was a "buffalo"
among them of the worst type--a great big "buffalo dog." The buyer,
when he paid them, said, "Well, James, if they had all been like the
big one, I would not have grudged you the price." "Ah, sir," said
James, "you would have difficulty in getting a lot like him!" I could
scarcely keep my gravity. A very grave and solemn conclusion to a sale
occurred to me at Hallow Fair. I had sold twenty beasts to a very rich
farmer near North Berwick, who had bought many lots from me. He had
employed a marker, who had just marked nineteen out of the twenty. The
buyer was joking with me about the dearness of the cattle, when, in a
moment, he dropped down dead, falling on his back, and never moving or
speaking more. The event created such a sensation, that no more sales
were made that day.

The English dealers seldom came north except to Aikey Fair. Then we had
the Armstrongs, the Millers, Murphy, and other English dealers, and it
was quite a sight to witness the