'Been ever in this part of the world before, sir?' asked Mr. John Balderstone, with his mouth full.
'Never,' replied Cecil.
'Ah, you'll soon learn to like Eaglescraig,' added the factor.
'I am enchanted with it already,' said Cecil, as his eye involuntarily wandered in Mary's direction; 'and believe that I shall like it more and more, till it will be quite a wrench when the time comes to tear myself away.'
'Then come back, Falconer, for some rod-fishing after Candlemas,' suggested his host, with a bright smile.
'Duty, I fear, may clash with your great hospitality; but I thank you, Sir Piers.'
'Call me general; I like it better.'
'To be always called so is my uncle's pet fancy, Mr. Falconer,' said Mary.
'All great men have their weaknesses, and I always respect them,' remarked Hew, with one of his scarcely perceptible sneers, for now Sir Piers, to his irritation, had plunged into some reminiscences of snipe-shooting at Dumdum, where he was wont to be for some hours up to the waist in water under a burning Bengal sun, necessitating frequent libations of brandy-pawnee; then, by some rapid transition of thought, he found himself detailing a march of the Cameronians through the jungles of Arcot, with the rain pouring in torrents, the road knee-deep in mud and mire, the men drenched, the tents soaked through, the mess and baggage animals miles in the rear, the column having to cross a nullah where the water ran like a mill-race, and there was the devil to pay!
Other anecdotes would have followed, but Hew, who had seen enough of India in reality too, proposed a move to the gun-room and thence to the covers.