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 183 of 254
Chapter XII · The Russians Come · pp. 247–257
The Keepers of the People
p. 255The day had worn through very wearily at the palace. Ruth and Althea paced the top of the tower during the long afternoon, pausing at whiles to strain their eyes towards the foot of the pass, tiring of the long waiting, burning for the fighting to begin. They had little to say. Althea’s couriers rode in one by one, all with the same story, the Russians were swarming through the pass, and the Varandals lay quiet in their camp, waiting, as it seemed, the pleasure of the enemy.
At six o’clock Althea came down, and having despatched a relay of horses along the road she was going to ride that night, came into the central room of the wing, and taking down her sword, set about sharpening it to a keener edge, mindful of her promise to Prince Ralph. Ruth came in after a while, and said, “Are you going to fight too?” “No,” said Althea: “I am sharpening this sword for you. If we get the worst of it, I am to kill you. That was Prince Ralph’s order; and he has my promise.”
Ruth took it from her; looked at the blade curiously; pricked her finger with the point; and said, “It is very sharp; and it should be very quick. You will be quick, if it comes to it?”
“Have no fear,” said Althea, in a strange voice, with strange eyes. “I shall thrust straight and quick.”
“I almost believe,” said Ruth, looking at her earnestly, “that you will not mind doing it.” “What is the use of minding what must be done?” said Althea, refusing to meet her eye. “Will you ride with me to-night?”
“I shall be glad of it, very glad. This waiting idle — doing nothing — able to do nothing — tortures me. I could not sleep unless my body were crushed with weariness,” said Ruth, almost fiercely.
“Ah, yes,” said Althea; “it is worse for you. I wait easily, because I have my task. And I have learned to wait.”
“I should have learned to wait,” said Ruth.
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.