The Rector And His Curate; Or, One Pound Two
by
“I trust we shall part as we met, in peace and charity. My last payment to you paid your salary up to the 1st of this month. Since that, I owe you for one month, which, being a long month, of thirty-one days, amounts, as near as I can calculate, to six pounds eight shillings. My steward returns you as a debtor to the amount of SEVEN POUNDS TEN SHILLINGS FOR COX-ACRE-GROUND, which leaves some trifling balance in my favor.”–Letter of Dismissal from the Rev. Marcus Beresford to his Curate, the Rev. T. A. Lyons.
The account is balanced–the bill drawn out,–
The debit and credit all right, no doubt–
The Rector rolling in wealth and state,
Owes to his Curate six pound eight;
The Curate, that least well-fed of men,
Owes to his Rector seven pound ten,
Which maketh the balance clearly due
From Curate to Rector, one pound two.
Ah balance, on earth unfair, uneven!
But sure to be all set right in heaven,
Where bills like these will be checkt, some day,
And the balance settled the other way:
Where Lyons the curate’s hard-wrung sum
Will back to his shade with interest come;
And Marcus, the rector, deep may rue
This tot, in his favor, of one pound two.