“She’s long overdue, isn’t she, porter?” he said at last.
“Only five minutes, sir,” was the reply.
“Five minutes!” muttered Mr Willoughby, “why, I seem to have waited here for a whole hour.”
In a first-class compartment of this late train—still at some considerable distance—sat three gentlemen. Brown were they in complexion as the waters of a mountain burn, and just as vivacious.
“Now, Frank,” said one, “I do wonder what your father will think of you when he sees you.”
“We’ve hardened him off properly,” said the other, laughing. Frank smiled, his thoughts just then wandered away down to a certain shire in Wales. He was wondering what his betrothed—what Eenie would think of him, and whether she herself would be much changed.
Half an hour afterwards all three were rattling off in the carriage, to the home of the Willoughbys. Need I say that that evening the fatted calf was killed, or that Frank was the hero there for weeks.
Heigho! but time will fly. I have kept my trio well in hand through all their years of wandering in wild places, but now at last the wizard power of pen must fail, our friends must scatter. It was very pleasant for a time roaming over the lovely fields and moors, gun in hand, dogs ahead, in the bright, bracing September days. The dinners in the evening at Willoughby Place were pleasant, too, and yet after one of the best of these, all of a sudden, during a lull in the conversation—
“Father,” said Frank, “I’m off to-morrow, like a bird, away down to Penmawhr Castle.”
“You young dog,” replied his father, laughing; “I’ve been expecting to hear this every day for the last week.”