“Yes, it’s like measles, or whoopin’-cough; every man has to have it sometime; but you haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, suppose I was in love; a man must be pretty conceited to imagine that he could make up to a girl for the sacrifice of bringing her to live in a place like Durford. That sounds horribly rude to Durford, but you won’t misunderstand me.”
“No; I know exactly how you feel; but the average girl is just dyin’ to make a great sacrifice for some good-lookin’ young fellow, all the same.”
“Ah yes; the average girl; but––”
Maxwell’s voice trailed off into silence, while he 91 affected to gaze stonily into the blue deeps of the sky overhead.
Hepsey had thought herself a pretty clever fisherman, in her day; evidently, she decided, this particular fish was not going to be easy to land.
“Don’t you think a clergyman is better off married?” she asked, presently.
Donald knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it in his pocket, clasped his hands across his knees, and smiled thoughtfully for a moment. There was a light in his eyes which was good to see, and a slight trembling of his lips before he ventured to speak. Then he sighed heavily.
“Yes, I do, on many accounts. But I think that any parson in a place like this ought to know and face all the difficulties of the situation before he comes to a definite decision and marries. Isn’t that your own view? You’ve had experience of married parsons here: what do you think?”
“Well, you see the matter is just like this: Every parish wants an unmarried parson; the vestry ’cause he’s cheap, every unmarried woman ’cause he may be a possible suitor; and it’s easier to run him than it is a married man. He may be decent, well-bred and educated. And he comes to a parcel of ignoramuses who think they know ten times as much as he does. 92 If he can’t earn enough to marry on, and has the good sense to keep out of matrimony, the people talk about his bein’ a selfish old bachelor who neglects his duty to society. He can’t afford to run a tumble-down rectory like ours. If in the face of all this he marries, he has to scrimp and stint until it is a question of buyin’ one egg or two, and lettin’ his wife worry and work until she’s fit for a lunatic asylum. No business corporation, not even a milk-peddlin’ trust, would treat its men so or expect good work from ’em. Then the average layman seldom thinks how he can help the parson. His one idea is to be a kicker as long as he can think of anything to kick about. The only man in this parish who never kicks is paralyzed in both legs. Yes sir; the parson of the country parish is the parish goat, as the sayin’ is.”