And yet it must not be imagined that this prejudice against orthodox mourning attire arises out of brutal-mindedness and contempt of death. It has its origin in “fashion.” It may seem odd to associate so dandy a thing as fashion with costermongerism, but it is quite true that they are closely associated. No man is more anxious “to do the thing to rights” in the matter of clothes than the prosperous barrow-man. At the period of which I am writing, Spitalfields set the fashion, and not a costermonger in London but scrupulously followed its dictates—from the seal-skin cap upon his head to the arrangement of the clinkers in the “ankle-jacks” in which his feet were encased. Fashion in Spitalfields was as capricious as the goddess that sways her sceptre in Regent Street. It was the correct thing for the costermonger, whatever branch of industry he might pursue, to wear round his throat—bunchy, loosely tied, and elegantly careless—a very large, highly-coloured silk pocket-handkerchief. This the costermonger calls a “kingsman.” This season its pattern would be yellow, with a green “bird’s-eye” spot; next season it would be red, with a blue splash; and as the cost of a “kingsman” was about seven-and-sixpence, and as there was nothing to be done with the old-fashioned one but to let the pawnbroker have it for as much as he would lend on it, the annual pecuniary sacrifice in this matter alone was not inconsiderable. As regards waistcoats, if my memory serves me, Spitalfields fashion was not quite so inexorable. So long as it was an ample waistcoat, and profusely and cheerfully “sprigged,” that was enough. His jacket was of flannel, or velveteen, or fustian—it didn’t matter which, so long as the pattern of the buttons was according to the prevailing mode. It was the buttons that stamped the garment. If “plain pearly shankers” were Fashion’s latest edict, to sport glass “blue bells,” or brass buttons of the game-keeping school, impressed with a horse and hounds, a fox’s head, or some other such emblem of the chase, would be to declare yourself a “slow coach” at the very least. Knee-breeches were just going out of fashion when I was a little boy, and “calf-clingers” (that is, trousers made to fit the leg as tight as a worsted stocking,) were “coming in.” Even the hair and whiskers of the costermonger, like that of more civilised folk, used to be governed by fashion. Sometimes “jug-loops,” (the hair brought straight on to the temples, and turned under,) would be the rage; another season, “terrier-crop” would be the style. There were three fashions for whiskers when I was a child, and they were variously known as “blue-cheek,” (the whisker shaved off, and leaving the cheek blue;) “bacca-pipe” (the whisker curled in tiny ringlets;) and “touzle” (the whisker worn bushy.) “Terrier-crop” and “blue-cheek” had, I recollect, a long run.
The barrow-man knew nothing of “Sunday,” or best clothes. They were his best he could best work in. In these he courted the young lady of his choice; in these he married her, worked for her, and, when she died, followed her to the grave. It was so with my father. The red and blue-splashed neckerchief, and the mouse-coloured fustian, with big white pearl buttons, were the fashion at the time when my mother died; and in these my father, with a pale and troubled face, arrayed himself, by the aid of young Joe Jenkins’s shaving-glass, while the undertaker and his men were busy up-stairs. The only articles my father had bought specially for the occasion were a pair of new ankle-jackets for himself, and a black cloth cap with a peak (of the pattern known as “navy”) for me. Having ascertained that I was to follow, Mr. Crowl, the undertaker, took my cap, and pinned a long black streamer round it, which trailed down to my heels; but a little time afterwards, happening to pass me in the passage—in the middle of which I was seated, dividing some hardbake with a few sympathising friends—his sad face bristled up as he saw a boy standing on my trailing “weeper,” and, fetching him a savage smack on the side of the head, he wiped the dirt off it, and pinned it up to a decent length.
The followers were to be my father, myself, Mrs. Jenkins, carrying the baby, (which, by the by, I had not set eyes on since the evening when Mrs. Jenkins had saved it from falling off my father’s lap) and four male friends of my father’s, who had come early, and were now assembled in Jenkins’s front room. Two of these four lived in the alley, but the other two were strangers to me. Judging from the smell, however, they were something in the fish way. They wore bits of crape round the sleeves of their flannel jackets; and though they looked anything but comfortable and at their ease, their behaviour was all that could be desired. They sat in a ring with my father, and smoked their pipes and talked but little, and that in solemn whispers. Their conversation, as I recollect, (for I was a good deal in and out of Jenkins’s front room that morning,) was all of a melancholy turn, in compliment, I suppose, to my father. Once, when I went in, they were deep in the subject of miracles; and one of the men whom I did not know was expatiating on Jonah’s probable sensations while in the bowels of the whale. Another time I caught them discussing the great Plague of London, dwelling particularly on that part where the men came round in the night with a cart and a bell, crying, “Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!” just like our own dustmen, only without fantails and baskets, and “loading up a precious deal more frequent,” one of them explained. They had some beer in a gallon can, but, not to make a display of it, it was stood behind the coal-box in the comer; and as their turns came round, they went and stood with their backs there, and took a swig, and then came back again looking more solemn than before.
I was engaged on a neighbouring door-step with my companions, when a woman who had been sent to find me, suddenly spied me out, and bore me away in a hurried and excited manner.
“Come along, Jimmy,” said she; “They’re ready to start, and only waiting for you.” Going along, she kindly damped the comer of her apron, and wiped my face and hands with it.
It was just as she said; the funeral party were already outside Number Nineteen, and waiting that I might be coupled to my father, and all be made right and proper. The graveyard of the old parish church was not more than three hundred yards distant; but the master undertaker, with his shiny boots and his oily hair and his black kid gloves, looked as though he were going out for the day at the least. He walked first, slowly, and after him crept the covered load. I think I must have been rather a dull boy for my age; but truth compels me to confess that, at starting, it never entered my head what the load was. I saw nothing in it but one of the oddest spectacles it was ever my lot to witness; there was a long black thing, very shiny and handsome, and hung about with fringe, walking on eight legs—eight legs and feet, some thin and some thick, and one with a crack in its boot, showing the stocking through.
“What is it, father?” I whispered him.
“What’s what, my dear?”
“That thing with the feet, father.”
“Hus—sh! that’s mother, Jimmy. This is what I was telling you about, don’t you know? They ’re taking of her to the pit-hole.” And, saying this, he made a plunge at his jacket-pocket, and, withdrawing his pocket-handkerchief, flung his hand up to his eyes as though sharp sand had blown into them suddenly, filling them with pain. Presently the wind lifting the splendid black cloth, I peeped up under it, and immediately recognised the end of the plain wooden box the woman opposite had lifted me up to the window to see. From this moment my mind became a maze, out of which the grim truth was presently to appear.
It was a lovely bright and sunny afternoon, and on Clerkenwell Green there was a caravan show of an Indian Chief and a Giantess; and hearing the showman banging at his gong, I saw plenty of boys and girls that I knew running past to see. We turned out of the alley, up Turnmill Street, round the corner by the Sessions House, and through the posts, (it gave me quite a turn, as the saying is, to find myself unthinkingly knocking the ashes out of my pipe atop of one of those posts the other day,) creeping along at a very slow rate. It was very hot and close, with the black load shutting out the way before, and the mourners behind, and the crowd that hemmed us in at the sides. This, however, would not have been so bad, only that the navy cap was much too big for me, (my father had guessed at the fit,) and covered my head so that the rim of the peak was on a level with the bridge of my nose, and prevented my seeing except out of the corners of my eyes, where the peak tapered off, and its depth was least. Once or twice I sought relief by tilting the cap towards the back of my head; but as this caused my weeper to trail on the ground, so that Mrs. Jenkins—who came immediately behind us, carrying the baby—stepped on it, she gave the cap a forward tilt that put me in worse case than ever. After a few moments of deep distress I ventured to push it back again, but she righted it instantly, and with such a cross “God bless the child!” that there was nothing left but to submit. As the reader must ere this have discovered, I was never very partial to Mrs. Jenkins. There she was, talking to the baby as it lay in her arms (with a weeper round its hood, just such as I wore round that abominable navy cap)—talking to it and calling it “poor deserted lamb,” just for all the world as though it knew all about the business in hand. I liked Mr. Jenkins much better than her, she was such a fussing sort of woman.