Worthy of his name

by Eglanton Thorne

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.