MINISTER'S BOY. 273 



waking hours abroad, can do but little with the 

 authority he has ; whilst the mother, not careful 

 of training at an early day, and used to the issue 

 of uncertain commands, has recourse to persuasions 

 or condescends to entreaty. Boys so reared come 

 home, as their instalment to office is termed; and 

 though at first shy and dumb as a sheep, yet no 

 sooner has a small command by a superior servant 

 been imposed than it provokes a loud defiance, so 

 naturally, in their new yoke, do they slide into the 

 wonted rut of their ill made roads. Trained to 

 no habits of industry, they like no sort of work. 

 Their pleasure lies in idle companions ; and their 

 haunt is not yet the tavern, but the smithy, where 

 they may spend the long hours in bartering a knife, 

 in arranging a gallop, or marvelling at a gun-lock, 

 with longing eye to the possession, but with no 

 liking to the labour that might purchase the manly 

 toy. 



So constituted, a boy cannot fall into worse hands 

 than those of the minister, or enter upon work he 

 is more reluctant to than his. On the farm the 

 crack of the whip is music to his ear; the assem- 

 blage of labourers, the jibe and the jest, have the 

 liveliness of a camp; whilst the yoking and un- 

 yoking of horses, the plunging of one unbroken to 

 the yoke, and the upsetting of a cart, are a perfect 

 Waterloo to his soul; and being there under 

 authority, he is also surrounded with examples, 

 which rouse his ambition, or soothe the toils of the 



day. But the scene is different at the manse: the 



S 



