“Well, old gentleman,” said Frank at last, addressing the toad, “you are like myself, I think; you are not over happy.”
“Pooh!” the toad seemed to reply. “I’m enjoying the sunshine and the free, fresh air, ain’t I? My house isn’t many yards round the corner. I’m a jolly old bachelor, that’s what I am, and there’s no life like it. No, I’m not unhappy, if you are. Pooh!”
“Heigho!” sighed Frank.
But list! There is some one singing, some one hidden at present by the trees, but evidently coming nearer and nearer to where Frank is sitting—a rich, mellow, manly voice; and the song comes directly from the heart, that you can easily tell, and from a gladsome heart, too, and one in unison with the freshness and brightness to be seen on every hand—
“I wish I were as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forests green.
With bended bow and bloodhound free;
For that’s the life that’s meet for me.”
Next moment, brushing the boughs aside, a tall, handsome young man of some five-and-twenty years appeared upon the scene. Brown he was as to beard and whiskers, bronzed as to cheeks and brow, and clear in eye as a little child.
“Why, Chisholm!” cried Frank, starting up and grasping his friend’s extended hand.
“Why, Frank!” cried Chisholm, “you terrible old recluse; and so I have found you at last, have I? Fairly ferreted you out. Sit down, old man, and give an account of yourself.”
“Well, you see,” said Willoughby, “I—I want to go up for my degree, and I—the fact is I’ve been reading.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” roared Chisholm, laughing till the forest rang again. “Been reading, have you?” As he spoke he kicked the book that lay on the grass. “Been reading Byron—ha, ha, ha! I do believe the boy’s in love.”