CHAPTER V.
LOVE IN A DIAMOND.
The next day Angus Home went out early as usual, about his many parish duties; this was it was true, neither a feast nor a fast day, nor had he to attend a morning service, but he had long ago constituted himself chief visitor among the sick and poorest of his flock, and such work occupied him from morning to night. Perhaps in a nature naturally inclined to asceticism, this daily mingling with the very poor and the very suffering, had helped to keep down all ambitions for earthly good things, whether those good things came in the guise of riches or honors; but though unambitious and very humble, never pushing himself forward, doing always the work that men who considered themselves more fastidious would shun, never allowing his voice to be heard where he believed wiser men than he might speak, Mr. Home was neither morbid nor unhappy; one of his greatest characteristics was an utter absence of all self-consciousness.
The fact was, the man, though he had a wife whom he loved, and children very dear to him, had grown accustomed to hold life lightly; to him life was in very truth a pilgrimage, a school, a morning which should usher in the great day of the future. His mental and spiritual eyes were fixed expectantly and longingly on that day; and in connection with it, it would be wrong to say that he was without ambition, for he had a very earnest and burning desire, not only for rank but for kingship by and by: he wanted to be crowned with the crown of righteousness.
Angus Home knew well that to wear that crown in all its lustre in the future, it must begin to fit his head down here; and he also knew that those who put on such crowns on earth, find them, as their great and blessed Master did before them, made of thorns.
It is no wonder then that the man with so simple a faith, so Christ-like a spirit, should not be greatly concerned by his wife's story of the night before. He did not absolutely forget it, for he pondered over it as he wended his way to the attic where the orphan Swifts lived. He felt sorry for Lottie as he thought of it, and he hoped she would soon cease to have such uncharitable ideas of her half-brothers; he himself could not even entertain the notion that any fraud had been committed; he felt rather shocked that his Lottie should dwell on so base a thing.
There is no doubt that this saint-like man could be a tiny bit provoking; and so his wife felt when he left her without again alluding to their last night's talk. After all it is wives and mothers who feel the sharpest stings of poverty. Charlotte had known what to be poor meant all her life, as a child, as a young girl, as a wife, as a mother, but she had been brave enough about it, indifferent enough to it, until the children came; but from the day her mother's story was told her, and she knew how close the wings of earthly comfort had swept her by, discontent came into her heart. Discontent came in and grew with the birth of each fresh little one. She might have made her children so comfortable, she could do so little with them; they were pretty children too. It went to her heart to see their beauty disfigured in ugly clothes; she used to look the other way with a great jealous pang, when she saw children not nearly so beautiful as hers, yet looked at and admired because of their bright fresh colors and dainty little surroundings. But poverty brought worse stings than these. The small house in Kentish Town was hot and stifling in the months of July and August; the children grew pale and pined for the fresh country air which could not be given to them; Lottie herself grew weak and languid, and her husband's pale face seemed to grow more ethereal day by day. At all such times as these did Charlotte Home's mind and thoughts refer back to her mother's story, and again and again the idea returned that a great, great wrong had been done.
In the winter when this story opens, poverty came very close to the little household. They were, it is true, quite out of debt, but they were only so because the food was kept so scanty, the fires so low, dress so very insufficient to keep at a distance the winter's bitter cold; they were only out of debt because the mother slaved from morning to night, and the father ate less and less, having, it is to be feared, less and less appetite to eat.
Then the wife and mother grew desperate, money must be brought in—how could it be done? The doctor called and said that baby Angus would die if he had not more milk—he must have what is called in London baby-milk, and plenty of it. Such milk in Kentish Town meant money. Lottie resolved that baby Angus should not die. In answering an advertisement which she hoped would give her employment, she accidentally found herself in her own half-brother's house. There was the wealth which had belonged to her father; there were the riches to which she was surely born. How delicious were those soft carpets; how nice those cushioned seats; how pleasant those glowing fires; what an air of refinement breathed over everything; how grand it was to be served by those noiseless and well-trained servants; how great a thing was wealth, after all!