At this point he broke down completely, and, burying his face in the pillow, fairly shook the scissor bedstead with the strength of his grief. The sorrow he had manifested in the early part of the evening was as nothing compared with it; and I take it to be a lucky circumstance that, affrighted by the dismal turn affairs had taken, I, too, now began to cry, and howl, and shriek, setting my pipes to the highest pitch. It was lucky for this reason, that lest every lodger in the house should be roused and alarmed by the tremendous row I was creating, my father exerted himself to stanch his grief, that he might be at liberty to abate mine. But I was not to be easily pacified. The terrible picture of death that my father had drawn filled me with horror. The truth was bad enough before, seen as I had seen it through a haze of uncertainty and ignorance; but now, when, in bis rough way, he whipped up the curtain, and exposed to my gaze the hard, grisly reality, it was altogether more than I could bear. It was all in vain that he endeavoured to quiet me. He in turn tried threats, coaxing, and compensation. He volunteered to tell me a story; and at once plunged, to the best of his ability, into one in which a dreadful ogre, with seven heads, had little children boiled regularly every morning for his breakfast. As may be imagined, I derived no sort of comfort from such a narrative. He felt out of bed for his trousers, and taking his canvas bag, gave it me with its contents. He promised me a ride on his barrow to Covent Garden Market in the morning. Knowing how much I liked Yarmouth bloaters, he pledged his word that if I would hold my row, I should have a whole one all to myself for my breakfast in the morning. There was a rocking-horse maker out in Aylesbury Street, and often had I expressed a desire to possess one of the splendid saddled and stirruped steeds exhibited in the shop-a desire that had invariably met with refusal, uncompromising and hopeless now the handsomest rocking-horse to be bought for money should be mine in the morning, if I would only lie down and be a good boy. No! no! no! I wanted my mother, and would be satisfied with nothing less. According to my father's own statement, she was lying all alone, speared through and through with spikes, as was Joe Jenkins's bullfinch, (or, if not, she was reduced to that deplorable condition, that whether they run spikes through or no would make no difference to her-which was much the same thing;) and what I insisted on, and would consent to leave off crying on no other terms, was that my father and I should go up-stairs and let mother out. He had the key of the door under his pillow, I reminded him; and begged and implored that he would go up and see what could be done for poor mother. "No; I won't do it. I can't do it. I wouldn't do it for a hundred good pounds told down," replied he, emphatically; "and since you won't be good for nothing less, why p'r'aps you'd better cry until you are tired, and then you'll leave off." My father had a way of saying things he really meant in a way there was no misunderstanding. The answer above written was of this sort, and speedily led to our coming to terms. On condition that he got up and lit a candle immediately, and, further, that I should see mother the very first thing in the morning, I consented to kiss him and be a good boy. I have no doubt but that my father congratu lated himself on having achieved a victory on such easy conditions; but there were difficulties in the way of the carrying out of the terms of our treaty he had never dreamed of. He got out of bed, and then he made the discovery that old Jenkins had not left us any candle. Stumbling amongst young Joe's wood and wirework, and feeling on the mantle-shelf and in the cupboard, he made the discovery; and it set him growling at a pretty rate. The handiest candle was the one outside the door, that the woman had brought down from the room where my mother was. "Here's a pretty go, Jim!" said my father, affecting to treat the matter pleasantly, as a lure, I suppose, for me to do the same. "I'm blessed if that old Jenkins hasn't took the candle away. We'll give him a talking to to-morrow morning, won't we?" "There's a candle outside, and matches as well," I replied. "I heard the woman who came down-stairs put them there." 66 'Oh, you don't want no candle, Jimmy!" said my father, coaxingly. "See what a man you are gettin'-going to have a bloater for your breakfast, too a whole bloater! See here; I'll pull aside the curtain, and let a bit more moon in-shall I? There you are! Why, it's as light as arternoon a'most now-ain't it? " But instead of answering him, I began to cry again, and to call out loudly for my mother. He saw plainly that there was nothing to be done but keep to the terms of our contract; so, after a bit of a growl, he opened the door very softly, and reached in the matches and the candlestick, and lit the candle, and stood it on a shelf. I was of course too young to think of such things at the time, but it has occurred to me frequently since,-how did my father feel, and what did he think about, as he lay watching that candle burning? In my eyes it was simply a bit of tallow candle; and my only reflection in reference to it was, that it would have been much better had it been somewhat longer, for there was not more than two inches of it, and it was all aslant and guttery. As he lay with his eyes fixed on it, however, it may have filled him with thoughts that were much more serious. It may have come into his mind that this was the candle that had burned all the night through in my mother's room, and that it was gazing on its flame that her dying sight had failed her. Perhaps she had said, as dying people will, under such circumstances, "Bring back the candle; I cannot see; I am in the dark." He may have been led to ponder on the uncertainty of life, and on what a useless thing a body bereft of its soul is. More useless than a scrap of candle, for the candle flame may be quenched, and the candle saved and rekindled; but the body never may until the day of the Great Rekindling comes. If he got into a train of thought of this sort, goodness knows what else he may have been led to think about. Perhaps of the considerable share he had taken towards putting my mother's life out, and how he would have to answer for it one day. I shouldn't wonder if he did think of this. Certainly, as he lay regarding the candleflame so intently thoughts of more than ordinary solemnity were busy within him, and I very sin cerely trust that the guess I have made is correct, because never before or since do I recollect seeing him so bowed down and humble. For my part, the bullfinch gave me enough to think of. By the dull light of the moon I had been able to make out little more than its mere shape. Now, however, it was plainly revealed from its head to its tail. My heart has been set against bullfinches from that time; and, as a gift even, I would not accept the best "piper" in London. I believe that most people would as soon entertain the idea of giving house-room to a human skeleton as I to a bird of this species; nor would it be, comparatively, more preposterous, since the bullfinch is, in my eyes, as perfect an emblem of death as could possibly be suggested. It was death itself, and so I regarded it. My eyes were drawn towards it, and would not be withdrawn. Its black, eyeless, bullet-shaped head; its wide-agape beak; its straddle legs; the crimson blurs and smirches that stained its body; the bright, sharp wires which trussed it in every direction, fascinated my gaze completely. Presently the dwindling candle began to sputter, and its flame to gasp for breath, as it were rising and falling like a man that is drowning, and seeming to make the spitted bird rise and fall, and to wriggle and writhe to get free from the spikes in it. Then, with a struggle, I turned my face to the wall, and, falling asleep, never awoke until I heard the tinkle of the breakfast things in Jenkins's room. CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I SEE THE YARD BY THE SIDE OF IT. At curious means for investing my money. I was the envy of every boy in the Alley. "I wish there was no mothers," said Jerry; "what's the good on 'em? They on'y whack yer, and get yer into rows when your father comes home. Anybody as is hard up for a mother can have mine, and jolly welcome. I wish she would die." "P'r'aps she will soon, Jerry," I replied, by way of comforting the poor fellow. "She'd better," said Jerry, with threatening brows. "Why had she better, Jerry ?" "Never mind why. You'll know why, one of these days, and so will all the jolly lot on yer as lives in Fryingpan Alley. You know Guy Fox, don't yer? Him as comes about on the fift of Nowember?" 66 Don't you ask any more I DISCOVERED no particular reason for bewailing my mother's death for some considerable time after it happened. On the contrary, indeed, I was decidedly a gainer by the melancholy event; for no sooner did it become generally known that I was an orphan, than every womanly heart in Fryingpan Alley yearned towards me. Yes, yes, Jerry, I know." During the first two or three days, this universal "Werry well, then. sympathy and commiseration was rather embar-questions, 'cos it's a secret." rassing to a boy so utterly unused to it. My appearance at the door was the signal for a doleful chorus of "Here comes poor little Jimmy!" and I could scarcely walk as far as the water-butt without having my head patted half-a-dozen times, and more bread and treacle and bits of pudding thrust into my hands that I could have fairly eaten in a day. Nor did the good-nature of the neighbours stop at presents of victuals. People whom I scarcely knew by sight even stopped me, and, after many tender inquiries of a sort calculated to make me pipe my eye, soothed and comforted me by gifts of halfpence and farthings. The pocket in my little breeches would scarcely hold my riches; and the value of money so depreciated in my eyes, that I was led into all sorts of extravagances. There was no delicacy in the sweetstuff-shop round the corner, from the top to the bottom shelf, with the flavour of which I did not make myself acquainted. My young acquaintances exerted themselves in my behalf to invent novel and "Do tell us, Jerry! Do tell us, and you shall have another bite; up to here, see!"-and I partitioned off a big bit of the apple with my fingers and thumb for Jerry to bite. "No, not up to there, nor not if you gives me the lot," replied Jerry, eyeing the little apple contemptuously; "why, it's ever such a secret. It 'ud make you funk so, that you'd be afeared to shut your eyes when you went to bed. I might let you into it, if you stood a baked tatur; and that 'ud be like chucking it away." Five minutes after, Jerry and I were seated on the threshold of a dark warehouse doorway, (it was evening,) in Red Lion Street; and while he discussed the baked potato, he revealed to me the particulars of his terrible secret. "I'm a savin' up," whispered he. "I've got as high as fippence. Leastways, when I ses fippence, it's fivepen'orth; so it's all the same." "Fivepen'orth of what, Jerry ?" "Fireworks," replied Jerry, in the lowest of whispers, and with his lips close to my wondering ear. "I've got a Roman candle, nine crackers, and a squib. Sky-rockets would be the things; but they're so jolly dear." "Where are they, Jerry? Whereabouts is the Roman candle and the crackers? What are you going to do with 'em, Jerry ?" to-morrow. He went up by himself, and presently he came down with a square pencil in his mouth and a tape-measure about his neck, conning the "dimensions," as he called them, and which were figured down on the smooth side of a scrap of dirty sandpaper. "They're stuffed in the bed-in our old woman's bed," replied Jerry, cramming the last piece of hot potato into his mouth, his face assuming a most fiendish expression. "I'm a savin' up till I buys enough fireworks to fill the jolly old tick quite full. Then I'm goin' to buy some gun-black bonnets and shawls, &c.-but his male repowder. Then I'm a-goin' to get up early one morning with my gunpowder, and lay a train under the bedstead, and down the stairs, and out into the street. Then I'm a-goin' on the tramp, dropping my gunpowder, mind yer, all the way as I goes; and when gets about up to Peckham, I'm a-goin' to set light to my train; and up 'll go the old woman over the houses, blowed into little bits." Whether Jerry Pape seriously contemplated this diabolical murder, or was merely imposing on me, I cannot, of course, be certain. Most probably the latter. I firmly believed in him at the time, however; and for several nights afterwards lay abed trembling, in the dark, in momentary expectation of a tremendous explosion, and one of the largest "bits" of Mrs. Pape falling down our chimney. To return, however, to my history. My mother dying on the Friday, her funeral was fixed to take place on the ensuing Tuesday, that being a slack day at the markets, and therefore suitable to my father's convenience. From the time of my mother's death until the day of her burial, I was so little at home as to be altogether unaware of the preparations that were going on towards that melancholy event. I did not even sleep at home, Mrs. Winkship having considerately placed at my disposal, at her house, the comfortable little crib which her niece Martha had slept in when she was a child. I should even have missed the sight of mother's coffin being carried in at Number Nineteen, had not the lady who lived opposite, and with whom I was taking tea, luckily caught sight of it, and, hurriedly catching me up in her arms, stood me on a table before the window that I might look. "See, Jimmy! see!" said she; "unkivered, with black nails; quite a pictur of a coffin I call that, now!" There was not much fuss about the Fryingpan Alley funerals. The people were buried in a business-like manner, at a business price, and there was no sentimental nonsense about the matter. I think I have said that I knew nothing of the preparation; but this is not quite correct. It happened that I was in Jenkins's room when the person living in the parlours called up the stairs that here was Mr. Crowl's man "come to take the measure" and presently, hearing a strange step, I peeped out at the door to see what Mr. Crowl's man was like. I found him to be a dirty-faced man, with hairy arms, and his shirt sleeves tucked above the elbows; and he had a brown paper cap on. He smoked a dirty pipe as high up the stairs as Jenkins's door; but when Mrs. Jenkins gave him the key of our door, he stuck the end of it into the pipe-bowl, and extinguished the fire, and put the pipe in his waistcoat pocket. He carried a pair of trestles on his shoulder, and observed that he thought he might just as well bring them with him now as to come on purpose It was an old-established custom in Fryingpan Alley, and all the other courts and alleys thereabout, that when a person died, his female relatives wore the regular sort of mourning attirelations wore nothing of the kind. They followed the body to the grave in their ordinary flannels and fustians, and their only emblem of bereavement was a wisp of black crape round the upper part of the arm, after exactly the same fashion, indeed, as soldiers wear their badges of mourning for any defunct member of the Royal family. Sometimes, in addition to the crape armlet, a bit of the same material would be worn round the cap; but this was considered not at all necessary, and as rather approaching what is known as "toffishness "---as near an approach to it, indeed, as could be by any means tolerated. Had any male dwelling in our alley ventured to turn out in a black coat and trousers, and, to crown all, a tall black hat, he would have been subject to the withering scorn of every inhabitant, and the tall black hat would certainly have been knocked from his head before he had reached Turnmill Street. 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 This 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 " 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. 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" Fashion's latest edict, to sport glass "blue bells," or brass buttons of the game-keeping school, im were the great Plague of London, dwelling particularly pressed with a horse and hounds, a fox's head, or 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 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 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 corner of her apron, and wiped my face and hands with it. It was just as she said; the funeral party were "What is it, father?" I whispered him. "That thing with the feet, father." 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 "Of course we have," replies Mr. Crowl, reprovingly. "What! right in? Right where the pulpit and that is?" You "Come along; don't talk foolish, man. shouldn't have come at all if you meant to act in this absurd way." "But are we 'bliged to go in, Mister?" 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 be-"still, having come here, as was supposed, for the hind us, carrying the baby-stepped on it, she purpose, and as friends of the deceased, it seems gave the cap a forward tilt that put me in worse hardly". 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. Straight up the street, and past the Giant and Dwarf show (from under the eave of my cap I could just see the showman exhibiting the dwarf's hand out of the window of the tiny house it lived in,) past the shop where one day went with my mother to buy a second-hand pair of boots, across the road, and there we are at the churchyard gate. The gate is open, and the beadle, with his laced coat and his cane, is waiting just inside. We pass inside, the eight legs creeping slower than ever. There is a whole lot of people coming up behind; but when all with crape upon their arms had passed through, the beadle shut the gate and locked it. Mr. Crowl, the undertaker, still leads the way. There is a long smooth pathway from the gate to the church door, flanked on either side by tall tombstones, treading over which my father, with the new hobnails in his boots, makes a clatter that sets Mr. Crowl's teeth on edge, judging from the expression of his countenance as he looks round. Arrived at the church door, which is open, Mr. Crowl pauses and faces round, holding up his forefinger as a sign to the bearers to pause too. Then Mr. Crowl takes off his shiny hat, and lays the brim of it to his bosom, at the same time looking more grief-worn than ever, and as though his heart was now racked to the extreme of its power of endurance, and nothing short of pressing the shiny hat over it would save it from breaking. With his head on one side, that he may get a view of the mourners in the rear of the black load, he signs to them to take off their caps before they enter the sacred edifice. This, however, brings matters to a momentary standstill. My father's four friends seem taken quite aback at Mr. Crowl's request, and regard each other sheepishly, and as though not quite knowing what to do. Perhaps they think of the short pipes in the pockets of their flannel jackets. Anyhow, they confer with each other in whispers, and after a few moments one of them beckons to Mr. Crowl. "Wery well, then; since we ain't obliged, we would take the liberty of being 'scused, if it's all the same to you, guv'nor. It's a thing wot none of us is used to. Not out of any slight to you, Jim, nor yet to her; that you know, old boy. Suppose we walks round a bit, and waits for you over there, alongside the-the place. Whereabouts might it be, Mister?" "The grave is number eleven-two-nine, over by the clog-maker's wall," replied Mr. Crowl, turning about in disgust, and beckoning the bearers to come on. We went into the church, and we came out again; and that, as far as applies to this stage of my mother's funeral, is about all that I know; for as soon as we got inside we were placed in a tall-sided pew, from which (although Mrs. Jenkins took my cap off) I could get a view of nothing but the ceiling. True, I could hear somebody talking in a loud voice, and now and then somebody breaking in, in quite another sort of voice, but what the two were talking about I had not the least idea. I was thinking all the time about "eleven-two-nine," and adding up the numbers on my fingers, and wondering what that had got to do with it. I was very glad when the two voices ceased, and the old pew-opener came and unlatched the pew and let us out. We didn't come out at the door we went in at, but at a little door at the farther end of the church; and never having seen the inside of a church before, the view I got of it on the road amazed me exceedingly. I believe I was chiefly impressed by the immense extent of matting laid over the floor, and with the queer pattern of the candlesticks the beautifully white candles were stuck in. We walked as at first, Mr. Crowl heading the bearers, and the black load next, then father and I, and then Mrs. Jenkins and the baby. Outside the church there was another stone-paved path, narrower than the first, but presently we turned off this and struck across a very hilly road, which must have been extremely trying to the eight legs under the black load. To legs of the length of mine, the hills presented obstacles so formidable that my father had to lift me over the biggest ones, till at last he found it more convenient to take me in his arms and carry me. From my perch on his shoulder I was the first to spy our four mourners who could not be persuaded to come into the church. They were lurking behind a big stone monument, and close by them was a heap of ragged clay and a long black hole. Close by the black hole there was a man dressed all in white, without his hat, and with a book in his hand. Presently we arrived at the black hole and the bearers came to a stand. Then, all unexpected, "We ain't got to go into the building, Mister, there appeared from among the tall tombstones have we?" four men in smock-frocks, with their caps all |