A lack of the needful may compel the parties concerned to wed without the smallest attempt at rural ostentation, but not so in the case of a funeral. Every sacrifice is made to honour the dead. They like it to be said that their loved ones were decently buried. They themselves feel proud to say, ‘Aye, he’s geean; wa’ve gitten him sahded by’ (buried), ‘an’ it war a beautiful funeral; Ah will say that.’
In these days one can scarcely conceive the needless waste of money, and by those too who can ill afford it, which is so lavishly squandered on funeral folly. It was even worse a few years ago.
Had it been possible for the moment to put on one side the solemn fact that some dearly loved one was being borne to his or her last long rest, funerals, as I remember them years ago in Ripon, were more like circus processions than anything else. Happily many of the old notions are being laid aside by the rising generation. Yet often to-day in country places, as far as circumstances will admit, the old order of things is most rigidly observed.
Two years ago I witnessed a country funeral, almost in all the pristine glory of my youthful days. One thing it lacked, the hearse and horses with their sombre nodding plumes. This, be it remembered, was the funeral of a widow’s son, her finances at the time being in anything but a flourishing condition. Two mutes stood guarding the open door. A silk scarf about three yards long was given to each bearer and mourner to fasten round his hat, and a pair of black kid gloves to every one bidden. I cannot say how much port wine was drunk, what it cost per bottle, or the weight of finger biscuits consumed, but as these were freely handed to every one assembled inside and outside the house, who could roll a pocket handkerchief into a ball, and assume a funereal aspect of countenance, considerable expense must have been incurred with these two items alone. After the return from the graveside, there was the funeral feast. Those who have never seen what provision is made for an affair of this kind can form but a very poor idea of the actual amount of food provided for and consumed by those who follow as mourners to the graveside. Refreshment is necessary for those who have driven, it may be, a long distance to pay their last respect to the departed one, but in the case of those who live near by, surely it does not need a moment’s thought for them to decide upon the more seemly course to pursue. The old days of the funeral arvel, when almost the whole countryside were bidden, not only to the funeral, but to the funeral feast, have passed away, or nearly so. Even to-day, in many of our dales, the neighbours are still bidden. This bidding, and the very name of it, are both of Scandinavian origin. The order of men carrying men, and women women, is still observed. The same also with the sex of the young; only, in the case of a young maiden, the girls who act as bearers are dressed in white, and the carrying of a garland in front of the coffin is not even yet extinct. At one time these garlands[25] were after the funeral hung up in the church, and I believe in some of our dale churches in Cleveland these emblems of purity are to be seen hanging yet.