Jack could feel the hollow place below, with the black mourners, simmer with panic, when the parson in cold blood asked them to sing a hymn. But he read the first verse solemnly, like an overture:
"Oh sweet and blessed country
The home of God's elect!
Oh sweet and blessed country
That eager hearts expect . . ."
There was a deadly pause. There was going to be no answer from the uncomfortable congregation, under that hot sun.
But Uncle Blogg was not to be daunted. He struck up in a rather fat, wheezy, Methodist voice, and Aunt Ruth piped feebly. The maiden Aunts, who had insisted on following their mother, though women were not expected to attend, listened to this for an awful minute or two, then they waveringly "tried" to join in. It was really only funny. And Tom in all his misery, suddenly started to laugh. Lennie looked up at him with wide eyes, but Tom's shoulders shook, shook harder, especially when Aunt Minnie "tried" to sing alto. That alto he could not bear.
The Reds were beginning to grin sheepishly and to turn their heads over their shoulders, as if the open country would not object to their grins. It was becoming a scandal.
Lennie saved the situation. His voice came clear and pure, like a chorister's, rising above the melancholy "trying" of the relations, a clear, pure singing, that seemed to dominate the whole wild bush.
"Oh sweet and blessed country
That eager hearts expect.
Jesu in mercy bring us
To that dear land of rest;
Who art with God the Father,
And Spirit ever blessed."
At the sound of Lennie's voice, Tom turned white as a sheet, and looked as if he were going to die too. But the boy's voice soared on, with that pure quality of innocence that was sheer agony to the elder brother.
IV
Jack, who was looking sick again, was sent away to the Greenlows' next day. And he was glad to go, thankful to be out of it. He loathed death, he loathed death, and Wandoo had suddenly become full of death.