"Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!" cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a
depressed business-like voice. "Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!"
So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our
noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and
Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been
brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking
ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a
horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like
a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along,
under the guidance of two keepers,--the postboy and his comrade.
The neighborhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we
were much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and
vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off,
and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times
the more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our
emergence round some corner of expectancy, "Here they come!" "Here they
are!" and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed
by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way
as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing
my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of
Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in
being members of so distinguished a procession.
And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the
ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard,
close to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this
parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was
laid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the
light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.
Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing,
I desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even
when those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it brought
nothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like
a shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a
reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into
large property. When we got back, he had the hardihood to tell me that
he wished my sister could have known I had done her so much honor, and
to hint that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at the
price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry,
and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since
observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another
race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went
away with Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,--to make an evening of it, I felt sure,
and to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes
and my earliest benefactor.