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"Why don't they go on bombardin' of us to-day?" said one. "'Cos it's Sunday, and they're singin' 'ymns," said another. "Well," said the first, "if they do start bombardin' of us, there ain't only one 'ymn I'll sing, an' that's 'Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me 'ide myself in thee." It was spoken in the broadest Devon without a smile. The British soldier is a class apart.
I don't know where I go but I go somewhere. And I dance. And if St. Peter sit at ze golden gates, like they say in ze fairybook, I say to 'im: ''Ave you ever seen ze Gyp Galop? And then I dance for 'im and ze angels play for me" she nodded wickedly "not 'ymn tunes." She was serious. She meant it. If she survived she survived as what she was or not at all.
'Mon, mon, that's apt to be dangerous. 'Nah then! cried the Cockney, reaching for his temperature-chart, 'we'll open the mornink proper with the 'Ymn of 'Ate. In cise you don't know the piece, m'lud, you can read it off your temperacher-ticket. Steady now everybody got a full breath? Gow!
So, knowing by the MacAllister's lowering countenance that dire consequences awaited his son upon his return home, Noah gave out the closing hymn, with undisturbed cheerfulness: "Come along now, boys and girls, an' we'll sing our closin' 'ymn. Never mind the poor little puppy, there ain't no bad in him at all.
Noah Clegg had sent Wully Johnstone's Johnny to look up and down the line to see if there was anyone coming, and Johnny having reported no one but Silas Pratt's brindled cow, the service commenced. "Now, boys and girls," said the superintendent, with a fine old London accent, "we'll sing 'ymn number fifty-four: "There is a 'appy land Far, far away."
'But it sounds like they was sayin' something nasty, an' meanin' it all. But one word, shouted fiercely and lustily, caught Private Robinson's ear. ''Ark! he said in eager anticipation. 'I do believe it's s-sh! There! triumphantly, as again the word rang out the one word at the end of the verse . . . 'England. 'It's it. It's the "'Ymn of 'Ate"!
"Yes; he was a General all right, and he give his life for Private Knapp." "Where is Piper?" asked the Parson. The little rifleman pointed to the tall clothes horse hung about with cloaks, which made a Sanctuary of the far end of the kitchen. "Is he dead?" whispering. "I fancies so, sir. Lingered it out wunnerful, chattin to the Genelman, ummin an ymn and that.
At the tenth request for the reading of this hymn the clergyman asked him what it was in the lines that made such an appeal to him. "Ah, sir," answered the old shepherd, "here I lie, and I know full well that I shall never get up again; but when you reads me that beautiful 'ymn, I fancies myself on the downs again at daybreak, and can just see 'Them rows of ewes at early dawn'!"
At the end of the prayer, amid groans and cries of 'Amen', the balloon slowly descended from the platform, and collapsed into one of the seats, and everyone rose up from the floor. When all were seated and the shuffling, coughing and blowing of noses had ceased Mr Didlum stood up and said: 'Before we sing the closin' 'ymn, the gentleman hon my left, the Rev. Mr John Starr, will say a few words.
And Tommy, "We're the King's Own 'Ymn of 'Aters"; some such subtle repartee as that. "Wot's your mob?" "We're a battalion of Irish rifles." The Germans liked to provoke us by pretending that the Irish were disloyal to England. Sometimes they shouted: "Any of you from London?" "Not arf! Wot was you a-doin' of in London? Witin' tible at Sam Isaac's fish-shop?"
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