Citizen Armies (The Jackson Family Saga Book 2) by Beryl Kingston

Author:Beryl Kingston [Kingston, Beryl]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2019-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

It shouldn’t be spring on a day like this, Rosie thought. Not when we’re burying our Pa. It should be raining and cold and miserable. But no, the sun was as warm as a blessing on their heads as they followed the coffin up the path towards the church, the sky was a tender blue and full of innocent cotton-wool clouds, the Downs were benign, the fields were fresh with new green grass. There was even a thrush singing in the may tree.

‘He’s saying goodbye to Pa,’ Tess said, squeezing Rosie’s arm.

Rosie thought that the bird was simply singing, the way it always did when the sun was shining, but she didn’t argue because the idea was comforting her sister. In any case, she had other more troubling things on her mind. It wasn’t just the unsuitable weather that was fretting her. She was worried about whether the speech she’d written for this funeral would do. She wanted to say something that would make her neighbours see what a dear, loving man her father had been, but the right words wouldn’t come, and what she’d written had seemed stiff and formal and absolutely useless when she’d read it through the previous evening. But it was too late to change it now. She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd of people who were waiting to follow the family into the church and shrank to think what a big event this was going to be.

But big or small, it was going to start at any minute. The coffin had reached the church door, was being carried into the church, she and her siblings were getting ready to follow it. She straightened her spine, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She would have to do the best she could.

It was warm in the church and the air was full of the reverberating sounds of the organ. Rosie could feel the crowd building up behind her, shuffling and coughing as they took their places in their accustomed pews. And then Father Selwyn was climbing into the pulpit to welcome them, smiling gently round at them all, and when the words of welcome had been said, he announced their first hymn.

‘The family asked for this hymn to be sung,’ he told them, ‘and it is particularly appropriate. It is ‘He who would valiant be,’ and who more valiant than our John Goodison?’

They sang lustily, which made Rosie feel far more comfortable. And it was an appropriate hymn.

He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,

Let him in constancy follow the Master.

There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

Who so beset him round with dismal stories

Do but themselves confound –his strength the more is.

No foes shall stay his might; though he with giants fight,

He will make good his right to be a pilgrim.

Since, Lord, Thou dost defend us with Thy Spirit,

We know we at the end, shall life inherit.

Then fancies flee away! I’ll fear not what men say,

I’ll labour night and day to be a pilgrim.

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