When the ceremony in the churchyard was at an end, a sense of relief manifested itself among the sable mourners in a hum of conversation interspersed with sallies of cheerfulness and splutter of laughter. A black stream now set in the direction of the cottage, where the bearers might recruit after the muscular exertion of carrying the corpse, and the mourners after the tension of their feelings.
The Undercliff habitation could not possibly contain all, and it resembled a hive about which the bees were thick, some entering eagerly, others emerging reluctantly, wiping their lips. Olver retained hold of a flask of spirits, and poured out to every one, accompanying each libation with a word on the irreparable loss the community had sustained, and on the unapproachable merits of the deceased, accompanied also by confident assurances that he was then smiling down on the mourners from aloft. Then he threw out observations on the good luck enjoyed by Jack at having come in for the fortune accumulated by the thrift of his father, who had been the most unselfish man he knew, toiling that Jack might enjoy, amassing that he might spend.
The ferryman did not fail to impress on all present that he had himself been the most intimate friend of Captain Job, associated with him throughout their lives, that they had lived as brothers, and that he had been constituted orally by the departed the guardian of Jack, and, added Dench, 'Please God I will do my duty by the lad, for ever and ever. Amen.' Then, as his cheeks grew redder, and his face more glossy, he moralised with greater unction. It behoved them all to take lesson, and so to order their lives as to be able to die as happy as had the captain. It would be well were their hearts in the right place, as was his. That was the great secret. All were doomed to fade as the lilies and to wither as the grass. Let them, therefore, lay up treasure for their children to enjoy, and comrades to be left behind to lament them.
Then he diverged into more or less open allusion to Jane Marley. He named no names, and he said nothing, but he felt all the deeper that it was a sad thing for a man when ill and dying to be in the hands of hirelings, who had no interest beyond grabbing what lay strewn about, and whose solicitude was wholly for themselves and not with the patient.
But these insinuations were made only when not liable to be overheard by Jane or Mrs. Jose. As his face glowed like a November setting sun, and assumed a gloss like young holly leaves, he became noisy, talking louder, excessive in his officiousness, demonstrative in his grief, and effusive in his piety.
'I think,' said he very boisterously, 'that we'll lift up our voices and sing John Wesley's favourite hymn, "For he's a jolly good fellow."'
Mrs. Jose hastily interfered.
'Well, ma'am, we'll take it slow time, like a hymn.'
As this did not meet with approval, 'Then some one start any hymn as is suitable—I ain't very familiar with psalm-tunes.'