“And now you are laughing at me. I can’t help it. I am ashamed perhaps; but, knowing what I do about the wolves, and what our chaps have seen— Ugh! It’s horrid! There they go again. Let’s get lower down.”
“To where the French are lying in camp, so that they may get hold of us again? Nonsense, Punch! What was the good of our slipping away if it was only to give ourselves up?”
“But we didn’t know then that we should run up against these wolves.”
“We are not going to run up against them, Punch, but they are going to run away from us if we behave like men.”
“But, don’t you see, I can’t behave like a man when I’m only a boy? Oh, there they go again!” half-whispered the poor fellow, who seemed thoroughly unnerved. “Come along, there’s a good chap.”
“No,” said Pen firmly. “You can’t behave like a man, but you can behave like a brave boy, and that’s what you are going to do. If we ever get back to our company you wouldn’t like me to tell the lads that you were so frightened by the howling of the wolves that you let me go on alone to face them, and—”
“Here, I say,” cried Punch excitedly, “you don’t mean to say that you would go on alone!”
“I mean to say I would,” said Pen firmly; “but I shall not have to, because you are coming on along with me.”
“No, I ain’t,” said the boy stubbornly.
“Yes, you are.”