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