"Drink the cup to the dregs," he said. "This is our grief, our
trial. None feel and know what we feel and know, and your youth
is called to bear a burden heavy to be borne. You must stand
beside his grave as surely as I must commit him to it."

Men will go far to look upon the coffin of one whose end happens
to be mysterious or terrible. The death of Sir Walter's son-in-law
had made much matter for the newspapers, and not only Chadlands,
but the countryside converged upon the naval funeral, lined the
route to the grave, and crowded the little burying ground where
the dead man would lie. Cameras pointed their eyes at the
gun-carriage and the mourners behind it. The photographers worked
for a sort of illustrated paper that tramples with a swine's hoofs
and routs up with a swine's nose the matter its clients best love
to purchase. Mary, supported by her father and her cousin,
preserved a brave composure. Indeed, she was less visibly moved
than they. It seemed that the ascetic parent of the dead had
power to lift the widow to his own stern self-control. The chaplain
of Tom May's ship assisted at the service, but Septimus May
conducted it. Not a few old messmates attended, for the sailor had
been popular, and his unexpected death brought genuine grief to
many men. Under a pile of flowers the coffin was carried to the
grave. Rare and precious blossoms came from Sir Walter's friends,
and H. M. S. Indomitable sent a mighty anchor of purple violets.
Mr. May read the service without a tremor, but his eyes blazed out
of his lean head, and there lacked not other signs to indicate the
depth of emotion he concealed. Then the bluejackets who had drawn
the gun-carriage fired a volley, and the rattle of their musketry
echoed sharply from the church tower.