So time passed on, and old age came upon him—a childless old age.
His son was gone—he had no doubt of that! He had no nephew, no cousin, or cousin's son, to succeed him in the lands that had been in his family since the wars of Bruce and Wallace—yea, since Norwegian Haco's banner fell on the field of Largs; and he began to fear that his title would become extinct, when, in the 'Landed Gentry of Grat Britain and Ireland,' he found that Sir Bernard Burke had assigned a place to a certain Mr. Hew Montgomerie, then broiling in the Indian Civil Service, proving that he was the nearest living relative of the line of Eaglescraig.
His lawyers speedily communicated with that amiable personage, whom we have already introduced to the reader, and thus it is that he came to be resident at Eaglescraig as heir of entail, and to the baronetcy.
The poor old general strove his hardest to like Hew, who also strove sedulously, and pretty skilfully, to keep his many bad qualities secret from him; but often when Sir Piers was in his thoughtful or sad moods, he would ask Mary to sing to him certain old songs that were associated in some way with the long-lost Piers, and as her soft voice went to the old man's heart, and her pretty hands strayed over the piano-keys, she 'soothed him to peace,' as Mrs. Garth was wont to say, 'as the harp of David had soothed King Saul with the holy spell of sweet music;' but it was a spell that always sent the thoughts of Sir Piers to wander in Shadow-land.
CHAPTER XIV.
LESLIE FOTHERINGHAME.
'Welcome back to Dumbarton, where I have been somewhat rather of a hermit since you left it—welcome back to pipeclay and all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war!" The decanter is beside you, and I think there are some prime havannas left in that box. So, now, let us be jolly,' exclaimed Leslie Fotheringhame, as Falconer seated himself in the quarters of the former, a curious-looking, old-fashioned room—the same that had been occupied by the little Queen Mary in her twelfth year (ere she sailed to France, after the battle of Pinkie)—one of the oldest parts of the castle.
Falconer cast himself with an air of weariness into an easy-chair, though his journey from Eaglescraig had not been a very long one.
'What about our fellows, Fotheringhame?' he asked, manipulating a cigar.
'The detachment?'