“It makes little difference to me if the journey occupies us well into the night, for then we shall be saved the necessity of going back to the blockhouse where those country louts are free to air their supposed wit.”
I saw at once that it was useless for me to make any attempt at dissuading him from his purpose by the argument that he could not endure the fatigue, although knowing full well that such was the case, therefore I tried another tack which, with a lad who had lived on the shore of the lake, would have been sufficient.
“In a snow-storm neither you nor I can skate or walk in a direct line on the ice, and the bravest man in Pennsylvania would hesitate long before making an attempt to travel ten miles after the storm which now threatens has come in good earnest.”
“Then we may as well keep on as to turn back,” he said, increasing his speed, thus forcing me to renewed exertions, for I was not minded he should run into danger alone.
During ten minutes or more I said all a lad might to dissuade a headstrong comrade from running into such peril as I knew was in store for us, providing we continued straight ahead.
I reminded him that my father’s orders for us to remain under cover in case of a snow-storm were positive, and that they would not have been given without good cause. I also suggested that the brother of a captain in the navy should be more careful than another to render due obedience to those who were in command over him, and referred to my father’s commission as sailing-master in the navy to show that either of us, while acting as scouts, must look upon him as our superior officer.
To all my arguments and entreaties he had but a single reply:—
“We are nearer the Canadian shore than the American, and there is less danger in going ahead than in returning.”
When I urged that by going back we should be among friends, while to continue on was, perchance, to find ourselves in the hands of the Britishers, he accused me of showing the white feather, and repeated the nursery rhyme of the lad who lived in the woods, and was scared by an owl.
I think it was that bit of doggerel which caused me to forget prudence in order that I might prove myself as brave as he, and yet I did but write myself down a fool, as one certainly is who ventures with no good reason into danger.