I have dined in many places and have eaten with many different folk, but never have I enjoyed a meal more than this, perhaps because of the padre who presided at my end of the table. A manly cleric this, bright-eyed, resolute of jaw but humorous of mouth, whose white choker did but seem to offset the virility of him. A man, I judged, who preached little and did much — a sailor's padre in very truth.
He told me how, but for an accident, he would have sailed with Admiral Cradock on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many died that Right and Justice might endure.
Poor chaps!" said I.
'Yes," said he, gently, "and yet it is surely a noble thing to — die greatly!"
And surely, surely for all those who in cause so just have met Death unflinching and unafraid, who have taken hold upon that which we call Life and carried it through and beyond the portals of Death into a sphere of nobler and greater living — surely to such as these strong souls the Empire