So, whilst Hetty was firing her little sarcasms into Harry, he for a while scarcely felt that they were stinging him, and let her shoot on without so much as taking the trouble to shake the little arrows out of his hide. Did she mean by her sneers and innuendoes to rouse him into action? He was too magnanimous to understand such small hints. Did she mean to shame him by saying that she, a weak woman, would don the casque and breastplate? The simple fellow either melted at the idea of her being in danger, or at the notion of her fighting fell a-laughing.
“Pray what is the use of having a strong hand if you only use it to hold a skein of silk for my mother?” cries Miss Hester; “and what is the good of being ever so strong in a drawing-room? Nobody wants you to throw anybody out of window, Harry! A strong man, indeed! I suppose there's a stronger at Bartholomew Fair. James Wolfe is not a strong man. He seems quite weakly and ill. When he was here last he was coughing the whole time, and as pale as if he had seen a ghost.”
“I never could understand why a man should be frightened at a ghost,” says Harry.
“Pray, have you seen one, sir?” asks the pert young lady.
“No. I thought I did once at home—when we were boys; but it was only Nathan in his night-shirt; but I wasn't frightened when I thought he was a ghost. I believe there's no such things. Our nurses tell a pack of lies about 'em,” says Harry, gravely. “George was a little frightened; but then he's——” Here he paused.
“Then George is what?” asked Hetty.
“George is different from me, that's all. Our mother's a bold woman as ever you saw, but she screams at seeing a mouse—always does—can't help it. It's her nature. So, you see, perhaps my brother can't bear ghosts. I don't mind 'em.”
“George always says you would have made a better soldier than he.”
“So I think I should, if I had been allowed to try. But he can do a thousand things better than me, or anybody else in the world. Why didn't he let me volunteer on Braddock's expedition? I might have got knocked on the head, and then I should have been pretty much as useful as I am now, and then I shouldn't have ruined myself, and brought people to point at me and say that I had disgraced the name of Warrington. Why mayn't I go on this expedition, and volunteer like Sir John Armytage? Oh, Hetty! I'm a miserable fellow—that's what I am,” and the miserable fellow paced the room at double quick time. “I wish I had never come to Europe,” he groaned out.
“What a compliment to us! Thank you, Harry!” But presently, on an appealing look from the gentleman, she added, “Are you—are you thinking of going home?”