But the night waned apace, and at last it was necessary to separate, if any justice was to be done to the cover shooting on the morrow, now close at hand. Hew gave Falconer his hand, which to the latter seemed clammy and quite like the tail of a fish; but the general insisted on escorting him to his 'quarters,' as he said, and conducted him, candle in hand, along one or two stately corridors adorned with fine paintings--two, that were of Cardinal York and King James VIII., evinced the Jacobite proclivities of Sir Piers' ancestors--and there, too, were trophies of the chase, both European and Asiatic. Never had Hew or the girls known the usually grave and rather stately old baronet 'in such a merry pin' (Hew suggested 'so screwed'); but as he threaded the corridors he was heard to sing a scrap of an old Anglo-Indian ditty: 'Good-bye to the _batta_!--to lighten The pangs of each blooming cadet; And the brows of the captains to brighten, They've doubled the one epaulette; They've added some lace to our jackets, Augmented the price of our caps, In the hope that the half-batta rackets Will merge in the glare of our "traps." Just as any new plaything bewitches The sulks out of little boys whipped; And before they've well pulled up their breeches, They wholly forget they've been stripped.' 'Ah, yes, Falconer, my lad, that song was known long before your day, when the beggars cut down the _batta_. But here you are--no, here; this is the door. Good-night; hope you'll sleep sound. No need for a chowree to whisk inside the curtains here, as in India, and after making them safe all round the mattress, spring in through the hole you leave (like Harlequin through his hoop), lest a cloud of mosquitoes follow. I remember, at Dumdum--no, at Dinapore, my son Piers and Ballachulish of the Cameronians----' Then his voice broke as he spoke of his son, and he added: 'But I'll tell you about it to-morrow. Breakfast at nine, and then--hey for the covers!' And now Sir Piers, whose voice had become certainly somewhat 'feathery,' betook him to his own room, pausing on the way more than once, candle in hand, as his aristocratic ideas of family, and that pride of birth which had been his ruling passion and sin in early life, occurred to him, and he muttered, pausing in his progress to bed, and shaking his white head: 'Doesn't know what Falconers he's of--a strange thing--a pity. My boy Piers forgot, too, what Montgomeries he was of, once on a time. A fine fellow, though!' As for the latter, he was simply enchanted with Eaglescraig and all the details thereof: the beauty of the two girls, each so different in its character, and the _savoir vivre_ of the old general. As for Hew, he forgot all about him.