Save for this kind of thing, which he could ill afford, Falconer thought the brief term of his leave would be delightfully spent at Eaglescraig. A 'green yule' had come and gone, without skating or curling, and the owl whooped nightly on the old tower-head, where the winter wind shook the masses of ivy on the time-worn walls; and the New Year was ushered in with well-bred joviality, rather than the hearty old-fashioned uproariousness of the olden time, though in the drawing-room the chorus could be heard from the servant's hall, where Mr. Tunley led it with joyous vociferation, singing, 'Here's a health to the year that's awa'!' And precisely as the house-clocks struck twelve--midnight--the house-door was unbarred with great formality, and thrown open to let the Old Year _out_, and the New Year _in_; and rising from his elbow-chair, Sir Piers kissed his niece Mary, and then old Mrs. Garth in a courtly fashion, an example Hew Montgomerie was not slow to follow on the soft cheek of the former, while Falconer looked laughingly, yet perhaps enviously, on, and dared only press her hand as he did that of Miss Erroll; and then there was a general handshaking with Mr. Balderstone and other old friends who had been invited to join the social circle. The rubicund Mr. Tunley offered, in the name of all the servants, to drink their old master's good health, and the health of all the family; and Sir Piers, natheless all his pride, cordially shook the old butler's hand, and each wished the other many happy years to come; and he went through the same ceremony with all in the servants' hall. In all this homely warmth, mutual kindness and goodwill, there was much that charmed Falconer; for though belonging to a Scottish regiment, and one famous in history, educated as he had been far away from his native country, and under peculiar circumstances, he knew little or nothing of the ways and customs of the latter. He had been much a wanderer, and never knew a home, save such as he had found with his regiment; so there was much in the little circle at Eaglescraig to delight him. Save with Hew, he won golden opinions from all there; his genial manner, spirited good-humour, handsome bearing, and facile mode of adapting himself to those among whom chance threw him--a mode that came, perhaps, of his having been educated abroad--all seemed to make him a prime favourite. He could speak much, and pleasantly, of what he had seen and where he had been; he was a reader, too, and the fruit of his reading cropped up pleasantly from time to time in the course of conversations that Hew could take little or no part in, greatly to his own wrath.