Slick and I retired,
and requested Mrs. Hodgins to leave the Minister and
her husband together for a while, for as Mr. Slick
observed, "The old man will talk it into him like a book;
for if he was possessed of the spirit of a devil, instead
of a Chartist, he is jist the boy to drive it out of
him. Let him be awhile, and he'll tame old uncle there,
like a cossit sheep; jist see if he don't, that's all."
We then walked up and down the shady lane, smoking our
cigars, and Mr. Slick observed, "Well, there is a nation
sight of difference, too, ain't there, atween this country
church, and a country meetin' house our side of the water;
I won't say in your country or my country; but I say
_our_ side of the water--and then it won't rile nobody;
for your folks will say I mean the States, and our citizens
will say I mean the colonies; but you and I know who the
cap fits, one or t'other, or both, don't we?
"Now here, this old-fashioned church, ain't quite up to
the notch, and is a leetle behind the enlightment of the
age like, with its queer old fixin's and what not; but
still it looks solemcoly' don't it, and the dim light
seems as if we warn't expected to be a lookin' about,
and as if outer world was shot out, from sight and thort,
and it warn't _man's_ house nother.
"I don't know whether it was that dear old man's preachin',
and he is a brick ain't he? or, whether it's the place,
or the place and him together; but somehow, or somehow
else, I feel more serious to-day than common, that's a
fact.
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