Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-05-17
SelGftea Gale.
THE MINISTER'S SANDY AND JESS.
WHAT SANDY WAS TO BE.


Sandy, Mr.. Stewart the minister of Clo-
ventords only son, was to be a minister
Ike his father and grandfather, who had
both wagged their heads in the pulpits be-
fore him Second-sght had seen him in "a
Geneva gown and pair of bands from the
time he wore long clothes and bibs.
With the great end in view, many a day
Sandy came in fear and trembling from
making bour-tree mills on the Hare Water,
and playing shinty with his sister Jess and
tie neighboring farmers sons on the coun-
,.y roads, to construe his Caesar or his Sal
INST in the minister's little brown bed
room
Fifty years ago, Mr.. Stewart was Tory
and an autocrat in rusty black, walking
over his parish, not unlike DR.. johnson, in
sGuf.brown, taking a turn down Fleet
Street. Mrs. Stewart had been an orphan,
with a very slender patrimony,-a parlor
toarder Of the Miss Allardyces, the old la
dies who from time immemorial had kept
the boarding school in the neighboring
town Of Woodcnd Mr. Stewart had met
bis fate at a Woodend subscription ball,
when 1t was customary for ministers to
sIvery Shoe-buckles as a testimony i'll IA
yor Of innocent enjoyment, and as protest
against Dissent and Jacobinism. There he
Succumbed in a single evening to Miss
Jean Clephane's dancing, though he did
not dance a step himself.
The marriage was a happy one. Mrs.
Stewart paid the minister loving homage
as the greatest and best of men. and called
lin lord and master to the extent Of keep
..5 her bedroom scrupulously free for his
study, and spending the choicest of her &C
complishments in needlework on the plated
,!..S Of his shirts and the enwOrk Of his
lands. In his turn, Mr.. Stewart was ten
Der to his wife, brought home what he sup
iosed her taste in gaudy caps and spen-
GERS, as connubial gifts, on the striking of
'-e fars and the meetings of Presbytery,
synod, and Assembly ; took notice of her
.etS, her towers, her work, for Mrs Stew
al vas almost as great in knitting bed
Covers, tent-s.itch-worked chairs, and cam
y'c flowers, as Mrs. Delany humored her
AAer habits, squirting her three evenings
week in summer, when she walked with
ler shawl over her head to the Kames, to
see the sun set behind the Beld Law, until
.e servants and the country-people called
ne beaten footpaths through the corn and
he clover I" the Minister and the Leddy's
Walk"
The manse children consisted of Sandy
and Jesse and it was a common remark
with regard to the two, that Sandy should
ave been Jess, and Jess Sandy
sandy was not scapegrace and a num-
&ull. He was bonnie laddie, very like
4s mother both in her sweet, fair, sunshi-
" face, and her sanguine, sensitive, i'm
a5Inative temperament He was shade
4oughtless as regarded divinity student
ID prospective, with greater bent for
Aawlng on the margins of his books and
,'Ples, and every scrap of paper that he
Uad come by, wonderfully faithful tran
scripts Of the hills, and woods, and
streams around" Clovenford, and clever
"mcal likenesses Of the master, his
Saool-tellows, and his acquaintances, than
of severe reading.
Dut his father was persuaded that Sc
S'leness and application would come to
.1auy with ripper years and except IN one
|a'ance, when he punished the lad with
'uS'erity for depicting the manse cat with
par OF bands round its neck, holding
t,'th from water-stoup to the cocks and
r'.'' and the rats peeping from the stacks
f'. Ue giebe yard, calling the sketch a pro-
,o ,ine and scprrilous jest, he did not trouble
SlSeIt $,-5 much about Sandy's shortcomings.
ssa sauuy was the apple of the Minister'S eye,
"a Ji'tctiy /; while openly, the father address
ss;a A. sle son by the comprehensively dispar-
'0'Hs corruption "min," term which, in