Lessons in Life, for All Who Will Read Them Part 21

"Ah?"

"Yes. It is for Larkin."

"Indeed! How much does it cost him?"

"Eight hundred dollars."

"He ought to have a fine pair of horses for so fine a carriage."

"And so he has. He bought a n.o.ble span, last week, for a thousand dollars."

Mr. Elder said what he could in praise of the elegant carriage; but he couldn't say much, for he had no heart to do so. He felt worse than ever about the deficiency in Mr. Malcolm's salary. On the next day he was in better spirits, and called in upon one of the members of the church, as he pa.s.sed to his store. He stated his errand, and received this reply--

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Elder, I am of Larkin's opinion in this matter. If our minister agreed to come for four hundred dollars, he should stick to his contract. He's no business to go in debt, and then call upon us to get him out of his difficulties. It isn't the clean thing. I don't mind a few dollars any more than you do; but I like principle. I like to see all men, especially ministers, stick to their text. Malcolm knew before he came here what we could afford to give him, and if he couldn't live upon that, he had no business to come.

That's what I think of it, and I always speak out my mind plainly."

Mr. Elder made no more begging calls on that day. But he tried it again on the next, and found that Larkin had been over the ground before him, and said so much about "the imposition of the thing," that he could do little or nothing. There was a speciousness about Larkin's manner of alluding to the subject, that carried people away with him; particularly as what he said favoured their inclination to keep a tight hold on their purse-strings. He was piqued with Elder, and this set him to talking, and doing more mischief than he thought for.

The Rev. Mr. Malcolm was a man of about thirty years of age. He had taken orders a couple of years previous to the date of his call to the parish where he now preached. At the time of doing so, he was engaged in teaching a school; from which he received a very comfortable income.

The bishop who ordained him recommended the parish at C--, when Mr.

Pelton left there, to apply for Mr. Malcolm; which was done. The latter was an honest, conscientious man, and sincere in his desire to do good in the sacred office to which he believed himself called. When the invitation to settle at C-- came, he left home and visited the parish, in order that he might determine whether it was his duty to go there or not. On his return, his wife inquired, with a good deal of interest, how he liked the place, and if he thought he would go there.

"I think I shall accept the call," said he. This was not spoken with much warmth.

"Don't you like the people?" inquired Mrs. Malcolm.

"Yes; as far as I saw them, they were very pleasant, good sort of people. But the salary is entirely too small."

"How much?"

"Four hundred dollars a year, and the parsonage--a little affair, that would rent for about a hundred dollars."

"We can't live on that," said Mrs. Malcolm, in a disappointed tone; "it is out of the question."

"No, certainly not. But I am a.s.sured that at least seven or eight hundred will be made up during the year. This has always been done for Mr. Pelton and will be done for me, if I accept the call."

"That might do, if we practised close economy. But why do they not make the salary seven or eight hundred dollars at once? It would be just the same to them, and make the minister feel a great deal more independent."

"True; but we must let people do things in their own way. We can live on seven hundred dollars, and I therefore think it my duty to give up my school, and accept the call."

"No one, certainly, can charge you with sordid views in doing so, for your school yields you now over a thousand dollars, and is increasing."

"I will try and keep my mind free from all thought of what people may say or think," returned Mr. Malcolm, "and endeavour to do right for the sake of right."

The wife of the Rev. Mr. Malcolm fully sympathized with her husband in his wish to enter upon the duties of his sacred calling, and was ready to make any sacrifice that could be made in order to see him in the position he so much desired to occupy. She did not, therefore, make any objection to giving up their pleasant home and sufficient income, but went with him cheerfully to C--, and there made every effort to reduce all their expenses to their reduced means of living.

It is a much easier thing to increase our expenses than to reduce them.

We get used to a certain free way of living, and it is one of the most difficult things in the world to give up this little luxury, and that pleasant indulgence, and come right down to the meagre necessaries of life. This fact was soon apparent to Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm; but they were in earnest in what they were about, and practised the required self-denial. Their expenses were kept within the limits of seven hundred dollars, the lowest sum that had been named.

At the end of the first three months, one hundred dollars were paid to the minister. When he gave up his school, he sold it out to a person who wished to succeed him, for two hundred dollars. The expense of removing to C--, and living there for three months, had quite exhausted this sum. Mr. Malcolm paid away his last dollar before the quarter's salary was due, and was forced to let his bread-bill and his meat-bill run on for a couple of weeks; these were paid the moment he received his salary.

"I don't like these bills at all," said he to his wife, after they were paid. "A minister should never owe a dollar; it does him no good. Above all things, his mind should live in a region above the anxieties that a deficient income and consequent debt always occasion. We must husband what we have, and make it go as far as possible."

By the end of two months, the hundred dollars were all expended; but not a word had been said about the additional three or four hundred that had been promised, or that Mr. Malcolm fully believed had been promised. Bills had now to be run up with the baker, grocer, and butcher, which amounted to nearly fifty dollars when the next quarter's salary was paid.

Mr. Malcolm did not doubt but the additional amount promised when he consented to accept the call would be made up; still he could not help feeling troubled. If things went on as they were going, by the end of the year he would be in debt at least two hundred dollars; and, of all things in the world, he had a horror of debt.

During this time, he was in familiar intercourse with the princ.i.p.al members of his church, and especially with the leading vestrymen who held out inducements to him beyond the fixed salary; but no allusion was made to the subject, and he had too much delicacy to introduce it.

At last, matters approached a climax. The minister was about two hundred dollars in debt, and bills were presented almost every week, and their settlement politely urged. This was a condition of things not to be endured by a man of Mr. Malcolm's high sense of right and peculiar delicacy of feeling. At length, after lying awake for half of the night, thinking over what was to be done, he came to the reluctant conclusion that it was his imperative duty to those he owed, to mention the necessities of his case to the vestry, and learn from them, without further delay, whether he had any thing beyond the four hundred dollars to expect.

The hardest task Mr. Malcolm had ever performed was now before him, and he shrunk from it with painful reluctance. But the path of duty was plain, and he was not a man to hold back when he saw his way clear. If there had been any hesitation, an imperative dun received before he sat down to breakfast, and another before nine o'clock, would have effectually dispelled it.

Mr. Malcolm went to the store of Mr. Elder, one of the vestrymen, and found him quite busy with customers. He waited for half an hour for him to be disengaged, and then went out, saying, as he pa.s.sed him at the counter, that he would call in again.

"Oh, dear!" he murmured to himself, with a long-drawn sigh, as he emerged upon the street, "is not this humiliating? If I had engaged for only four hundred dollars a year, I would have lived on bread and water rather than have exceeded my income; but at least seven hundred were promised. It was, however, an informal promise; and I was wrong, perhaps, in trusting to any thing so unsettled as this. Of course, it will be paid to me when I make known my present situation; but the doing of that I shrink from."

"Mr. T-- was here again for his bill," were the first words that saluted the ears of the minister when he returned home.

"What did you say to him?" he asked.

"I told him that you would settle it very soon. He said he hoped you would, for he wanted money badly, and it had been running for some time."

"He was rude, then!"

"A little so," replied the wife, in a meek voice.

Mr. Malcolm paced the floor with rapid steps; he felt deeply disturbed.

An hour afterwards, he entered the store of Mr. Elder, and found the owner disengaged. He did not linger in preliminaries, but approached the subject thus:--

"You remember, Mr. Elder, that in the interview I had with you and two of the vestry previous to my accepting the call of this parish, you stated that my income would not be limited to the four hundred dollars named as the minister's salary, which I then told you was a smaller sum than I could possibly live upon?"

Mr. Elder exhibited a momentary confusion when the minister said this; but he immediately replied--"Yes, I believe something was said on that subject, though I have not thought of it since. We always had to make up something for Mr. Pelton, and I suppose we must do the same for you, if it is necessary. Do you find your salary inadequate?"

"Entirely so; and I knew it would be inadequate from the first. It is impossible for me to support my family on four hundred dollars; and had I not been a.s.sured that at least three or four hundred dollars extra would be made up during the year, I never would have dreamed of accepting the call. It has been a principle with me not to go in debt; and since I have been a man, I have not, until this time, owed a dollar; and should not have owed it now, had I received, since I have resided in C-- the income I fully expected."

Mr. Malcolm spoke with warmth, for he felt some risings of the natural man at the indifference with which a promise of so much consequence to him had been disregarded.

"How much do you owe?" inquired the vestryman.

"About two hundred dollars."

"Indeed! so much?"

A bitter remark arose to the minister's lips, but he forced himself to keep silence. He was a man, with all the natural feelings of a man.

"Well, I suppose we must make it for you somehow," said Mr. Elder, the tone in which he spoke showing that the subject worried him. "Are any of the demands on you pressing?" he inquired, after a pause.