Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 180 of 254
Chapter XII · The Russians Come · pp. 247–257
The Keepers of the People
p. 250“No,” said Ruth.
“Well we’ve come thirty-five miles; and that is far enough out. But I want to go over as much country as possible; and we ride lighter and are better mounted than the mutes. I shall ride twenty miles to the left before I turn. Will you come with me, or go with the mutes who will strike across country lower down, and meet me fifteen miles from home.”
“I will go with you,” said Ruth.
“Very good; we shall be very tired though,” said Althea.
The mutes turned, and rode off slowly; the two girls rode along a road at right angles to the road they had come. They rode slower, sparing their horses; and it seemed to Ruth that they were in a great loneliness. They were two hours riding the twenty miles, and passed through six more villages. In the farthest villages there was more talk; the people had had less time to digest the news.
“It is past their hour for going to bed,” said Althea, at the last but one.
At last they came to four cross-roads, and she said, “I’m beginning to feel the ride a bit; but here we turn.”
“I’m beginning to feel it too,” said Ruth; “and I’m in training. How’ strong you have grown, Althea.”
“I’ve ridden thousands of miles in the last two years,” said Althea. “I ought to be hard. But let us get down, and walk a mile or two. It will take the stiffness out of us.”
They dismounted, and with their reins through their arms, walked along side by side; and Althea talked with a warm admiration of the Varandals, of their courage, their kindliness, their gaiety. Ruth listened to her eagerly, trying to understand the passion for them which inspired her eloquence. But after a mile her feet began to drag, and she said, “I wish I were dressed as you are, Althea; this dragging skirt hampers me.”
“Well, we can very well ride again; but we must go slowly, there is not much galloping left in the horses,” said Althea.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XII · The Russians Come · Book II, Chapter XII · The Russians Come · pp. 247–257
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.