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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 determined. “It would be a pity to separate the boys, after they have been so long together, and have got to be so much used to each other. Their characters are so identical, too, that they are more like brothers than very distant relatives.”

      “Dey will like one anot’er all de petter for pein’ a little tifferent, den,” answered the Colonel, drily.

      Dirck and I were no more alike than a horse resembles a mule.

      “Ay, but Dirck is a lad who will do honour to an education—he is solid and thoughtful, and learning will not be thrown away on such a youth. Was he in England, that sedate lad might get to be a bishop.”

      “I want no pishops in my family, Major Evans; nor do I want any great l’arnin’. None of us ever saw a college, and we have got on fery vell. I am a colonel and a memper; my fat’er was a colonel and a memper; and my grand-fet’er woult have peen a colonel and a memper, but dere vast no colonels and no mempers in his time; though Tirck, yonter can be a colonel and a memper, wit’out crosting dat terriple ferry that frightens Matam Littlepage so much.”

      There was usually a little humour in all Col. Follock said and did, though it must be owned it was humour after a very Dutch model; Dutch-built fun, as Mr. Worden used to call it. Nevertheless, it was humour; and there was enough of Holland in all the junior generations of the Littlepages to enjoy it. My father understood him, and my mother did not hear the last of the “terriple ferry” until not only I, but the college itself, had quitted Newark; for the institution made another remove to Princeton, the place where it is now to be found, some time before I got my degree.

      “You have got on very well without a college education, as all must admit, colonel,” answered Mr. Worden; “but there is no telling how much better you would have got on, had you been an A. M. You might, in the last case, have been a general and a member of the King’s council.”

      “Dere ist no yeneral in ter colony, the commander-in-chief and His Majesty’s representatif excepted,” returned the colonel. “We are no Yankees, to make yenerals of ploughmen.”

      Hereupon, the colonel and my father knocked the ashes out of their pipes at the same instant, and both laughed,—a merriment in which the parson, my grandfather, my dear mother, and I myself joined. Even a negro boy, who was about my own age, and whose name was Jacob, or Jaap, but who was commonly called Yaap, grinned at the remark, for he had a sovereign contempt for Yankee Land, and all it contained; almost as sovereign a contempt as that which Yankee Land entertained for York itself, and its Dutch population. Dirck was the only person present who looked grave; but Dirck was habitually as grave and sedate, as if he had been born to become a burgomaster.

      “Quite right, Brom,” cried my father; “colonels are good enough for us; and when we do make a man that, even, we are a little particular about his being respectable and fit for the office. Nevertheless, learning will not hurt Corny, and to college he shall go, let you do as you please with Dirck. So that matter is settled, and no more need be said about it.”

      And it was settled, and to college I did go, and that by the awful Powles’ Hook Ferry, in the bargain. Near as we lived to town, I paid my first visit to the island of Manhattan the day my father and myself started for Newark. I had an aunt, who lived in Queen Street, not a very great distance from the fort, and she had kindly invited me and my father to pass a day with her, on our way to New Jersey, which invitation had been accepted. In my youth, the world in general was not as much addicted to gadding about as it is now getting to be, and neither my grandfather nor my father ordinarily went to town, their calls to the legislature excepted, more than twice a year. My mother’s visits were still less frequent, although Mrs. Legge, my aunt, was her own sister. Mr. Legge was a lawyer of a good deal of reputation, but he was inclined to be in the opposition, or espoused the popular side in politics; and there could be no great cordiality between one of that frame of mind and our family. I remember we had not been in the house an hour, before СКАЧАТЬ