Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition)
“You think not, Col. Follock,” put in the anxious mother; “may I ask the reason for that opinion?”
“Too much Suntay, Matam Littlepage—the poy wilt be sp’ilt by ter ministers. He will go away an honest lat, and come pack a rogue. He will l’arn how to bray and to cheat.”
“Hoity toity! my noble colonel!” exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Worden, affecting more resentment than he felt. “Then you fancy the clergy, and too much Sunday, will be apt to convert an honest youth into a knave!”
The colonel made no answer, continuing to smoke very philosophically, though he took occasion, while he drew the pipe out of his mouth, in one of its periodical removals, to make a significant gesture with it towards the rising sun, which all present understood to mean “down east,” as it is usual to say, when we mean to designate the colonies of New England. That he was understood by the Rev. Mr. Worden, is highly probable; since that gentleman continued to turn the flip of one vessel into another, by way of more intimately blending the ingredients of the mixture, quite as coolly as if there had been no reflection on his trade.
“What do you think of Yale, friend ‘Brom?” asked my father, who understood the dumb-show as well as any of them.
“No tifference, Evans; dey all breaches and brays too much. Goot men have no neet of so much religion. Vhen a man is really goot, religion only does him harm. I mean Yankee religion.”
“I have another objection to Yale,” observed Capt. Hugh Roger, “which is their English.”
“Och!” exclaimed the Colonel—“Deir English is horriple! Wuss dan ast to us Tutch.”
“Well, I was not aware of that,” observed my father. “They are English, sir, as well as ourselves, and why should they not speak the language as well as we?”
“Why toes not a Yorkshireman, or a Cornishman, speak as veil as a Lonnoner? I tell you what, Evans, I’ll pet the pest game-cock on ter Neck, against the veriest tunghill the parson hast, ter Presitent of Yale calls p e e n, pen, ant roof, ruff—and so on.”
“My birds are all game,” put in the divine; “I keep no other breed.”
“Surely, Mr. Worden, you do not countenance cock-fights by your presence!” my mother said, using as much of reproach in her manner as comported with the holy office of the party she addressed, and with her own gentle nature. The Colonel winked at my father, and laughed through his pipe, an exploit he might have been said to perform almost hourly. My father smiled in return; for, to own the truth, he had been present at such sports on one or two occasions, when the parson’s curiosity had tempted him to peep in also; but my grandfather looked grave and much in earnest. As for Mr. Worden himself, he met the imputation like a man. To do him justice, if he were not an ascetic, neither was he a whining hypocrite, as is the case with too many of those who aspire to be disciples and ministers of our blessed Lord.
“Why not, Madam Littlepage?” Mr. Worden stoutly demanded. “There are worse places than cock-pits; for, mark me, I never bet—no, not on a horse-race, even; and that is an occasion on which any gentleman might venture a few guineas, in a liberal, frank, way. There are so few amusements for people of education in this country, Madam Littlepage, that one is not to be too particular. If there were hounds and hunting, now, as there are at home, you should never hear of me at a cock-fight, I can assure you.”
“I must say I do not approve of cock-fights,” rejoined my mother meekly; “and I hope Corny will never be seen at one. No—never—never.”
“Dere you’re wrong, Matam Littlepage,” the Colonel remarked, “for ter sight of ter spirit of ter cocks wilt give ter boy spirit himself. My Tirck, dere, goes to all in ter neighbourhood and he is a game-cock himself, let me tell you. Come, Tirck—come—cock-a-doodle-doo!”
This was true all round, as I very well knew, young as I was. Dirck, who was as slow-moving, as dull-seeming, and as anti-mercurial a boy to look at as one could find in a thousand, was thorough game at the bottom, and he had been at many a main, as he had told me himself. How much of his spirit was derived from witnessing such scenes I will not take on me to affirm; for, in these later times, I have heard it questioned whether such exhibitions do really improve the spectator’s courage or not. But Dirck had pluck, and plenty of it, and in that particular, at least, his father was not mistaken. The Colonel’s opinion always carried weight with my mother, both on account of his Dutch extraction, and on account of his well-established probity; for, to own the truth, a text or a sentiment from him had far more weight with her than the same from the clergyman. She was silenced on the subject of cock-fighting for the moment, therefore, which gave Capt. Hugh Roger further opportunity to pursue that of the English language. The grandfather, who was an inveterate lover of the sport, would have cut in to that branch of the discourse, but he had a great tenderness for my mother, whom everybody loved by the way, and he commanded himself, glad to find that so important an interest had fallen into hands as good as those of the Colonel. He would just as soon be absent from church as be absent from a cock-fight, and he was a very good observer of religion.
“I should have sent Evans to Yale, had it not been for the miserable manner of speaking English they have in New England,” resumed my grandfather; “and I had no wish to have a son who might pass for a Cornish man. We shall have to send this boy to Newark, in New Jersey. The distance is not so great, and we shall be certain he will not get any of your round-head notions of religion, too, Col. ‘Brom, you Dutch are not altogether free from these distressing follies.
“Debble a pit!” growled the Colonel, through his pipe; for no devotee of liberalism and latitudinarianisrn in religion could be more averse to extra-piety than he. The Colonel, however, was not of the Dutch Reformed; he was an Episcopalian, like ourselves, his mother having brought this branch of the Follocks into the church; and, consequently, he entered into all our feelings on the subject of religion, heart and hand. Perhaps Mr. Worden was a greater favourite with no member of the four parishes over which he presided, than with Col. Abraham Van Valkenburgh.
“I should think less of sending Corny to Newark,” added my mother, “was it not for crossing the water.”
“Crossing the water!” repeated Mr. Worden. “The Newark we mean, Madam Littlepage, is not at home: the Jersey of which we speak is the adjoining colony of that came.”
“I am aware of that, Mr. Worden; but it is not possible to get to Newark, without making that terrible voyage be tween New York and Powles’ Hook. No, sir, it is impossible; and every time the child comes home, that risk will have to be run. It would cause me many a sleepless night!”
“He can go by Tobb’s Ferry, Matam Littlepage,” quietly observed the Colonel.
“Dobb’s Ferry can be very little better than that by Powles’ Hook,” rejoined the tender mother. “A ferry is a ferry; and the Hudson will be the Hudson, from Albany to New York. So water is water.”
As these were all self-evident propositions, they produced a pause in the discourse; for men do not deal with new ideas as freely as they deal with the old.
“Dere is a way, Evans, as you and I know py experience,” resumed the Colonel, winking again at my father, “to go rount the Hudson altoget’er. To pe sure, it is a long way, and a pit in the woots; but petter to untertake dat, than to haf the poy lose his l’arnin’. Ter journey might be made in two mont’s, and he none the wuss for ter exercise. Ter Major and I were never heartier dan when we were operating on the he’t waters of the Hutson. I will tell Corny the roat.”
My mother saw that her apprehensions were laughed at, and she had the good sense to be silent. The discussion did not the less proceed, until it was decided, after an hour more of weighing the pros and the cons, that I was to be sent to Nassau Hall, Newark, New Jersey, and was to move from that place with the college, whenever that event might happen.
“You will send Dirck there, too,” my father added, as soon as the affair in my case was finally