“Not at all, I thank you,” he replied. “But just fancy Edmund between the rascal’s teeth, snipping him in two at the small of the waist!”
“You should not speak in that manner, Henry,” said Mrs. Montgomery.
“Speaking don’t make it more likely to happen, ma’am,” he replied; “more unlikely things have happened, tho’! What do you say to a wager, Frances, eh? What will you bet, I say, that a hungry shark, don’t make a dinner of Edmund, the very next time he goes to sea?”
“Fie! fie! Henry,” interrupted Mrs. Montgomery; “this is a subject on which we have all felt seriously, too lately, to be disposed to jest upon it at present.”
“It’s not quite such a jest neither,” he answered, sulkily. “If the ball had hit him, instead of the fluke of the anchor, (as it might just as easily have done,) I maintain it, there would not have been two inches square of him left in any one piece! And what’s to prevent the next ball, I should be glad to know, from hitting him, or me, or any other fellow that goes in the way of it! People must prepare their fine feelings for such things,” he continued, looking after Julia as she was leaving the room. “He has been devilish lucky, I think, to get on as he has done, and make so much money too, without getting knocked on the head long ago! But his turn will come next, I dare say,” he added in great haste, lest Julia should reach the door before it was said.
“It cannot be at all necessary to your professional character, Henry, to be either unfeeling, or inelegant,” observed Mrs. Montgomery. “What can be more the opposite of both, than Edmund; and you will allow, I believe, that he is a good sailor.”
“Yes,” said Frances, “he is certainly an instance, that to be a brave officer it is not necessary to be a sea-monster! And I really do not perceive what right those have to be the latter, who cannot even offer in their apology that they are the former.” And she followed her sister with tears of vexation in her eyes.
“You should not, my dear,” said Mrs. Montgomery, as soon as the door closed after Frances, “address such expressions to your cousins, as that—‘young ladies need not volunteer their feelings to every fellow in His Majesty’s service!’ and such language, at any rate, can never be applicable in the present instance. It would indeed be very unnatural, and unamiable too, of them, if they did not feel when Edmund was in danger.”
“If you don’t mind what you’re about, ma’am, I suspect you’ll have some natural feelings to manage that you won’t much like!”