Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition). James Fenimore Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ learned languages and the sciences are taught, to a degree, and in a perfection, that is surprising for a new country. These colleges are Yale, at New Haven, in Connecticut, and Nassau Hall, which was then at Newark, New Jersey, after having been a short time at Elizabethtown, but which has since been established at Princeton. Mr. Worden laughed at both; said that neither had as much learning as a second-rate English grammar-school; and that a lower-form boy, at Eton or Westminster, could take a master’s degree at either, and pass for a prodigy in the bargain. My father, who was born in the colonies, and had a good deal of the right colony feeling, was nettled at this, I remember; while my grandfather, being old-country born, but colony educated, was at a loss how to view the matter. The captain had a great respect for his native land, and evidently considered it the paradise of this earth, though his recollections of it were not very distinct; but, at the same time, he loved Old York, and West Chester in particular, where he had married and established himself at Satan’s Toe; or, as he spelt it, and as we all have spelt it, now, this many a day, Satanstoe. I was present at the conversation which decided the question, as regarded my future education, and which took place in the common parlour, around a blazing fire, about a week before Christmas, the year I was fourteen. There were present Capt. Hugh Roger, Major Evans, my mother, the Rev. Mr. Worden, and an old gentleman of Dutch designation and extraction, of the name of Abraham Van Valkenburgh, but who was familiarly called, by his friends, ‘Brom Follock, or Col. Follock or Volleck, as the last happen to be more or less ceremonious, or more or less Dutch. Follock, I think, however was the favourite pronunciation. This Col. Van Valkenburgh was an old brother-soldier of my father’s, and, indeed, a relation, a sort of a cousin through my greatgrandmother, besides being a man of much consideration and substance. He lived in Rockland, just across the Hudson, but never failed to pay a visit to Satanstoe at that season of the year. On the present occasion, he was accompanied by his son, Dirck, who was my friend, and just a year my junior.

      “Vell, den,”—the colonel commenced the discourse by saying, as he tapped the ashes out of his pipe for the second time that evening, having first taken a draught of hot flip, a beverage much in vogue then, as well as now,—“vell, den, Evans, vat is your intention as to ter poy? Vill he pe college-l’arnt, like as his grant-fat’er, or only school-l’arnt, like as his own fat’er?” The allusion to the grandfather being a pleasantry of the colonel’s, who insisted that all the old-country born were “college-l’arnt” by instinct.

      “To own the truth, ‘Brom,” my father answered, “this is a point that is not yet entirely settled, for there are different opinions as to the place to which he shall be sent, even admitting that he is to be sent at all.”

      The colonel fastened his full, projecting, blue eyes on my father, in a way that pretty plainly expressed surprise.

      “Vat, den, is dere so many colleges, dat it is hart to choose?” he said.

      “There are but two that can be of any use to us, for Cambridge is much too distant to think of sending the boy so far. Cambridge was in our thoughts at one time, but that is given up.”

      “Vhere, den, ist Camprige?” demanded the Dutchman, removing his pipe to ask so important a question, a ceremony he usually thought unnecessary.

      “It is a New England college—near Boston; not half a day’s journey distant, I fancy.”

      “Don’t sent Cornelius dere,” ejaculated the colonel, contriving to get these words out alongside of the stem of the pipe.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ