"At two o'clock, Jones, I shall be here with the funeral," said Mr. Banks.
"Wery good, sir," returned Jones.
The undertaker then left the burial-ground; and the grave-digger proceeded to open another pit.
CHAPTER CVII.
A DISCOVERY.
AT two o'clock precisely the funeral entered the cemetery.
Four villanous-looking fellows supported a common coffin, over which was thrown a scanty pall, full of holes, and so ragged at the edges that it seemed as if it were embellished with a fringe.
Mr. Banks, with a countenance expressing only a moderate degree of grief, attended as a mourner, accompanied by the surgeon and the Buffer. The truth is that Mr. Banks had a graduated scale of funeral expressions of countenance. When he was uncommonly well paid, his physiognomy denoted a grief more poignant than that of even the nearest relatives of the deceased: when he was indifferently paid, as he considered himself to be in the present case, he could not afford tears, although he was not so economical as to dispense with a white pocket-handkerchief.
In front of the procession walked the Resurrection Man, clad in a surplice of dingy hue, and holding an enormous prayer-book in his hand. This miscreant performed one of the most holy—one of the most sacred of religious rites!
Start not, gentle reader! This is no exaggeration—no extravagance on our part. In all the poor districts in London, the undertakers have their own men to solemnise the burial rites of those who die in poverty, or who have no friends to superintend their passage to the grave.
The Resurrection Man,—a villain stained with every crime—a murderer of the blackest dye—a wretch whose chief pursuit was the violation of the tomb,—the Resurrection Man read the funeral service over the unknown who was now consigned to the grave.