CHAPTER V.

HOW THE NEIGHBOURS SYMPATHISED.

"I SAID he was a gentleman!" cried Sally Dent to the neighbours gathered about her doorstep. "But I didn't think he was a-goin' to die suddent, and give me all the bother of a inkwest, and the police comin' and goin', and such a commotion till you don't know whether your house is your own. I don't call that a gentlemanly thing to do."

"P'raps he couldn't help it," suggested Mrs. Minn. "Folks don't allus know when they're a-goin' to die."

"For goodness' sake, don't talk that way, Mrs. Minn!" cried Sally, excitedly. "It ain't lucky when there's death in the 'ouse a'ready! I'm sure I was that turned over when I saw what 'ad 'appened this mornin' that you might 'ave knocked me down with a feather. I was forced to take somethin' before I went into the room again, and I'm all of a tremble still."

"What sort of a corpse do 'e make?" asked another woman.

"A real beauty," replied Sally with enthusiasm. "You'd 'ardly know him, he looks so much younger; all the lines and creases is gone, and his face is just lovely. He looks the gentleman now, he do indeed! You go inside and take a look at 'im, if you doubt my word."

"Poor gentleman!" said Joe Clark, the carpenter, not satirically. "Whatever he was, he'd come down in the world, and had a lot of trouble. Well, there's an end to it now. What's to be done about the funeral, Mrs. Dent?"

"The parish must bury him," said Sally promptly; "he's left only a few shillin's, hardly enough to buy refreshments for the funeral. It is strange how he would pay me last night—seems as if he wanted to leave things all square like. It touched me at the time, for I've a feelin' 'eart."

"I'd be happy to knock him up a coffin jest for the cost of the wood," suggested Joe Clark, "if any one was inclined to 'elp. Them parish funerals is very humiliatin' to a man."

"That's a good thought, Joe Clark," said Sally Dent, who really had a kind heart. "I'm ready to pay my share, if so be as you're goin' to make a collection. Sure, and I'm thankful my good man did not come to be buried by the parish. We begun to put into a buryin' club soon as ever we was married, for, as I said, there was no knowin' what 'ud 'appen, or who'd be the first to go. And a real 'andsome funeral 'is was."

One and another of the neighbours declared their willingness to help. Nothing interested them like a funeral. They liked the idea of seeing the poor gentleman, who had never done them either good or ill, carried to his grave "as a gentleman should be." In a short time, sufficient money was raised to pay the hire of a hearse, behind which the neighbours might walk two and two, headed by the chief mourner, to the cemetery, which lay near Glensford. Sally Dent kept in reserve the few shillings she had found in her lodger's room to pay for "refreshments."

Meanwhile Gus cared not at all in what manner his father's body was borne to the grave. The boy was stunned by the trouble that had come so suddenly upon him. Childlike, though he had often seen his father weak and suffering, he had never thought that death would take him away. In losing his father, he had lost the only love, the only tenderness he could remember. It was terrible that he should be left alone in the world.

But the boy's thoughts did not go forward into the future as he sat motionless beside the bed on which lay the still, set form wearing the inimitable majesty with which death will invest even a pauper's form. The square, strong brow, the delicately chiselled nostril, the fine curve of the short upper lip, had the perfection of a sculptor's handiwork. But for Gus it was his father, and yet not his father. He looked with awe as well as grief upon that calm face. He shed no tears; but his blue eyes expressed a dumb anguish as they held their unfaltering gaze. He never willingly spoke or moved as one and another came and went, viewing the corpse and freely remarking on it.

The inquest held on the body of George Rew—for that was the name Sally Dent gave as her lodger's—was a simple affair. A medical man gave evidence of the existence of long-seated heart-disease, aggravated by a hard and intemperate life. Sally Dent bore witness to the character and habits of the deceased. She had brushed and plaited her abundant tresses, put on a tidy gown, and made herself quite presentable for the occasion, so that the coroner and jury were impressed with her respectable appearance. When the coroner asked what was to become of the orphan boy, and suggested that he should be sent to an industrial school, Sally announced her willingness to give the boy a home. He would be useful in looking after the little ones and doing jobs in the house; she would see that he went to school regularly. And the coroner was satisfied that this would be a good thing for Gus, and commended the woman for her kindness to the boy.

The funeral took place on the day following that of the inquest.

Gus watched all the proceedings with unbroken composure till he saw the coffin closed over the face that he had grown to love in its cold, stone-like beauty. Then a bitter cry broke from him, and he threw himself, in an agony of grief, upon the bed on which his father had lain.

But he allowed himself to be raised, and struggled to keep back his sobs when Mrs. Minn and a friend came in to array him for the funeral in Mrs. Minn's eldest boy's best clothes, kindly lent for the occasion. Gus was too small to fill them, and with knickerbockers descending almost to his ankles, and a coat in which his slender form was lost, whilst the sleeves had to be turned back almost to the elbow to give freedom to his hands, the appearance of the chief mourner was decidedly grotesque. But the clothes were, by courtesy, black, and though shiny, they were whole, so they came up to the standard Lavender Terrace held of what was befitting to a funeral, which did not require nicety of fit.

The clothes, which he had not "proved," gave Gus considerable anxiety as he shuffled along behind the coffin, followed by as many of the denizens in Lavender Terrace as could get a half-day's holiday. He would far rather have worn the old, ragged garments, in which he could walk freely, without being harassed by dread lest he and his clothes should part company altogether.

Gus had seen funerals enough, but he had never before "assisted" at one, and perhaps the novelty of his position combined with a most unwonted sense of importance to blunt his sensibility of all that this event meant for him.

Is it not a merciful dispensation that the majority of us get through our darkest hours with a sense of numbness and unreality that spares us the full agony of the wrench which later we feel in its intensity? Gus only half realised that it was his father's form they were lowering into the grave. He did not give way again to the wild grief that had shaken him when he saw the coffin-lid pressed down.

The general feeling of Lavender Terrace would have liked him to display more emotion. The neighbours around him made a grand flourishing of the rare pocket-handkerchiefs reserved for such occasions. But Gus maintained his composure, and shuffled back to the Terrace with outward calm, though with a heart that ached sorely.

The "refreshments" had been laid out in Sally Dent's front room. Into this apartment pressed every one who had attended the funeral. There was a grand drawing of corks, and gradually the odour of spirits diffused itself through the room. Gus had been carried into the room with the others against his will. He was watching for a chance of escape, when Sally's eye fell on him, and she beckoned him to her.

"Come, Gus," she said, "you should be the first served to-day. Take a long drink; it will do you good, for you've hardly tasted anything since you got up."

And she held out to him a glass of strong gin and water.

But Gus drew back with an air of repugnance. "No, thank you, I cannot indeed; I never drink spirits," he said.

"Oh, but you're bound to have a drop to-day; it's your father's funeral. It ain't lucky to refuse to drink at a funeral. Come now, it won't hurt you; and I say you shall have it, so there!"

"Yes, yes, young man, you'll have to take it, whether you will or not," said one of the men. "There's no gainsaying Sally. That's right, bring the glass here; we'll make him swaller it."

And he pinioned Gus' arms to his side, holding him in a grasp the boy was powerless to shake off. There was a general laugh as Sally advanced with the glass. Time enough had been given to tears and sighs. The reaction was setting in. It was only right to laugh and be jolly now, when the funeral was successfully accomplished.

"I won't drink it! I promised father I never would, and I won't!" cried Gus.

"That's a joke!" roared another man. "Promised his father, indeed! I'll be bound his father would never have refused a glass of good liquor."

Things were growing desperate with Gus. Sally was pressing the glass to his lips; he clenched his teeth, but the man, half-strangling him, forced his mouth open. Gus saved himself; however. With a sudden, tremendous effort, he struck out with his chin so forcibly that he sent the glass flying from Sally's hand to the floor, where it lay shivered.

"Well, of all ungrateful young varmints!" cried Sally, in her indignation. "After all we've done for you, buryin' your father like a gentleman, when, but for us, he must've had the parish hearse. One of my new glasses, I declare! Get along with you, do, if you can't behave better than that!"

Gus needed no second bidding to be off. He left the company lamenting the waste of good spirit, and rushed into the dismal back room which had been his home. It looked to his eyes more dismal than ever, now that the table and trunk which had supported the coffin stood bare. With a cry, he threw himself on his knees beside the bed, and hid his face in the tumbled bed-clothes.

"Oh, father!" he cried. "Father, father! What can I do without you?"

As the evening wore on, the sounds of mirth in the adjoining room grew louder and wilder. No one gave a thought to the fatherless boy. He crouched there alone and comfortless, till he forgot his sorrow in sleep.