her source. His country stood
pledged in time of peace to help in time of war a sister State, and when
the bond fell due he honoured it, though none knew better than this noble
man that when he loosed the dogs of war he crossed a lion's path.

Now he is tottering to his fall, amidst the ruins of a crumbling State,
forsaken by the Powers that egged him on with covert promises of armed
support, abandoned to the tender mercies of his foes by those on whose
behalf he drew the sword. Yet, even now, the dauntless spirit of the man
rises above the wreckage of disaster. A little band of heroes ring him
round. Though every man in all that fearless few is England's foe, yet we,
who boast the Vikings' blood in every vein, can we not honour them? So did
our forefathers stand round Harold when Norman William trod with armed heel
on English soil. So stood our fathers when Blucher's laggard step hung back
from Waterloo. Are we not great enough to look with pride upon a gallant
foe? Or has our nation fallen from its high estate, has chivalry departed
from our blood, and left us nothing but the dregs which go to make a nation
of hucksters? If so, then let us leave the battlefields to better men, and
train our children solely for the market-place. But these are idle words,
born of the spleen which such a thought engenders. Full well I know the
temper of our people, terrible in their wrath, but swift to see the
nobleness in those who face them boldly.

And these be noble men, my masters. They rally round their chief, as you
and yours would rally round a British leader if foreign hordes swept with
resistless might over England's historic soil. All that they loved they've
lost, and nothing now remains to them but honour and a patriot's grave; and
in the grim game of war it is our stern task to give them what they seek--a
soldier's death beneath the doomed flag which, in their stubborn pride,
they will never forsake. But even whilst we hem them round with bristling
bayonets, ready for the last dread act in this red drama, let us pay them
the tribute due to all brave men; for he who gives his life to guard a
cause he holds most dear is worthy of our admiration, though he be ten
thousand times our foe. What should we think of men who, left to guard the
Kentish fields, threw down their arms and sued for peace to any leader of
an invading host because our cause seemed lost? Should we not curse them as
a craven crowd, and teach our lisping babes t