The Keepers of the People

969“But what right have you to treat them so? Who gave you the right?”

970“The sword, and the strong will,” he said. “If it be expedient that men die for the people, it is expedient that men be silent for the people. We, the Princes, must dwell in mystery away from the eyes of the people, that we may wear always a velvet glove over the iron hand. Let our doings become common talk, and every prater will prate against us, till in the years to come the people will fall away, and we shall have to slay them in thousands.”

971“This is sheer selfish barbarity!” she said.

972“It may be,” said Prince Ralph. “But the people prosper.”

973He had been gentle with her; and she was angry that she had not provoked him to defend himself more warmly, that she had made so little impression on his gentle coldness.

974The next day he sent her the Books of the Wisdom of the Princes; and she read in them how the people had been built up, and how it had been ruled. The reading of them only increased her horror of the methods; and she said to him, “I’ve read the Books of the Wisdom of the Princes; and as I expected they are sheer barbarity. Your methods of ruling are only fit for the Dark Ages, for hideous Oriental despotism. Modern enlightenment has demonstrated beyond question the futility, the hopeless futility, of trying to rule a people in such a fashion. Why there is no suffrage of any kind.”

975“To-morrow you shall come and see,” said Prince Ralph.

976On the morrow, accordingly, they rode out in the cool of the evening, in Varandal dress, she veiled, he disguised; and went slowly from village to village along the lanes, avoiding the high-roads. The people sat at their doors, or were gathered together on the greens in the middle of the villages. The men were mending their tools, or idling, the women were spinning, or at their needle. In some villages the young men and the maidens were dancing, or the young men were at their games, and the maidens were watching them. They met many pairs of lovers in the lanes, not silent as in England; in all the villages there was lute-playing, and singing, and groups round story-tellers; and in all the children played merrily. But above all the many pleasant sounds that broke the evening stillness, rang a perpetual ripple of laughter: the old men laughed with the old women, the wives with the husbands, the young men with the maidens, and the shriller laughter of children heightened everywhere the note.