“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.”