“And have all Virginia jeering at me! There's not a gentleman there that wouldn't, except one, and him my mother doesn't like. I should be ashamed to go home now, I think. You don't know my mother, Hetty. I ain't afraid of most things; but, somehow, I am of her. What shall I say to her, when she says, 'Harry, where's your patrimony?' 'Spent, mother,' I shall have to say. 'What have you done with it?' 'Wasted it, mother, and went to prison after.' 'Who took you out of prison?' 'Brother George, ma'am, he took me out of prison; and now I'm come back, having done no good for myself, with no profession, no prospects, no nothing—only to look after negroes, and be scolded at home; or to go to sleep at sermons; or to play at cards, and drink, and fight cocks at the taverns about.' How can I look the gentlemen of the country in the face? I'm ashamed to go home in this way, I say. I must and will do something! What shall I do, Hetty? Ah! what shall I do?”
“Do? What did Mr. Wolfe do at Louisbourg? Ill as he was, and in love as we knew him to be, he didn't stop to be nursed by his mother, Harry, or to dawdle with his sweetheart. He went on the King's service, and hath come back covered with honour. If there is to be another great campaign in America, papa says he is sure of a great command.”
“I wish he would take me with him, and that a ball would knock me on the head and finish me,” groaned Harry. “You speak to me, Hetty, as though it were my fault that I am not in the army, when you know I would give—give, forsooth, what have I to give?—yes! my life to go on service!”
“Life indeed!” says Miss Hetty, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“You don't seem to think that of much value, Hetty,” remarked Harry, sadly. “No more it is—to anybody. I'm a poor useless fellow. I'm not even free to throw it away as I would like, being under orders here and at home.”
“Orders indeed! Why under orders?” cries Miss Hetty. “Aren't you tall enough, and old enough, to act for yourself, and must you have George for a master here, and your mother for a schoolmistress at home? If I were a man, I would do something famous before I was two-and-twenty years old, that I would! I would have the world speak of me. I wouldn't dawdle at apron-strings. I wouldn't curse my fortune—I'd make it. I vow and declare I would!”
Now, for the first time, Harry began to wince at the words of his young lecturer.
“No negro on our estate is more a slave than I am, Hetty,” he said, turning very red as he addressed her; “but then, Miss Lambert, we don't reproach the poor fellow for not being free. That isn't generous. At least, that isn't the way I understand honour. Perhaps with women it's different, or I may be wrong, and have no right to be hurt at a young girl telling me what my faults are. Perhaps my faults are not my faults—only my cursed luck. You have been talking ever so long about this gentleman volunteering, and that man winning glory, and cracking up their courage as if I had none of my own. I suppose, for the matter of that, I'm as well provided as other gentlemen. I don't brag but I'm not afraid of Mr. Wolfe, nor of Sir John Armytage, nor of anybody else that ever I saw. How can I buy a commission when I've spent my last shilling, or ask my brother for more who has already halved with me? A gentleman of my rank can't go a common soldier—else, by Jupiter, I would! And if a ball finished me, I suppose Miss Hetty Lambert wouldn't be very sorry. It isn't kind, Hetty—I didn't think it of you.”
“What is it I have said?” asks the young lady. “I have only said Sir John Armytage has volunteered, and Mr. Wolfe has covered himself with honour, and you begin to scold me! How can I help it if Mr. Wolfe is brave and famous? Is that any reason you should be angry, pray?”
“I didn't say angry,” said Harry, gravely. “I said I was hurt.”