The news of his death was the first thing to bring the War actually home to our isolated corner of the world.
People had known he was ill, because his wife had been summoned to a military hospital some weeks before, when his condition was pronounced critical. But no one had really anticipated the worst—till it came. And then the word passed quickly from cottage to cottage: “Poor Aleck’s gone!”
“Ay! You don’t say so! Ain’t it just like they Huns to go and kill off the best of the bunch,” said one woman who never had a good word for the lad during his lifetime.
One and all agreed forthwith that proper respect must be shown to “the remains”; and those who didn’t intend to inconvenience themselves by fighting, felt they were serving their country nobly by seeing that poor Aleck had a handsome funeral.
The news of his death reached the village on Friday. On Saturday the older members of the family selected the spot for his grave in the little churchyard, as, of course, he must be buried near his home.
By Sunday all the relatives to the remotest generation wore deep mourning to church—thanks to the superhuman efforts of the village dressmaker, and numerous ready-mades purchased in the nearest town.
The Rector was in a nursing-home in London at the time, but the curate, though only newly arrived, preached a moving sermon, extolling the courage of the young man who had died “with his face to the foe, braving the falling shells and raining bullets in order to defend his country.”
The sentiment was right—Aleck was willing to do all that; but in reality he never got beyond a training camp on the east coast, where, the air proving too bleak for him after the mildness of the west, he had gone down with pneumonia. The new curate didn’t know that, however, and everybody said it was a beautiful sermon, and went and told the poor mother about it, as she had been too grief-stricken to go to church.
So far the widow had not written herself; but that wasn’t surprising; she would be too broken down with trouble. Willing heads and hands did all they could, however, to anticipate her wishes.
They telegraphed to the former curate (now the vicar of a crowded Lancashire parish) and asked if he would conduct the funeral; he had known the deceased from boyhood. He wired back: “Yes; send day and hour.”