Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
English Edition · Branch 219 of 254
Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
The Keepers of the People
p. 314“What great wickedness! Are they murderers?” said Prince Ralph.
“No: but—”
“Are they thieves, slanderers, envious?” said Prince Ralph.
“No: but—”
“Are they false friends and lovers, bad husbands and fathers?”
“No: but—”
“Are they liars?”
“No: but they worship false gods; they do not know of the wrath to come. What are works without faith? They go through life singing and dancing with wanton laughter!” cried the missionary.
“You grudge them their laughter, then?” said Prince Ralph.
“What is laughter? Thorns crackling under a pot?” said the missionary.
“You fool,” said Prince Ralph with immeasurable scorn. “Know that the people that is joyous is the people that is good. There is no room in Varandaleel for the teaching of a fool and a liar — that is not Christianity! You die!”
The missionary sprang from the ground with a great gasp, and shut his eyes twice or thrice; his forehead shone of a sudden with small sweat-beads; then he cried in a stifled voice that grew shrill, “Die? — Die? — Yes! yes! — Let me die! Let me die! And you shall see! Even as I burn, I will testify! I will bear witness! And these, my benighted black brethren, seeing how a Christian can die, shall come and be saved by thousands! And they shall execrate you! You the persecutor! They and their children’s children! Your name shall be a byword among the nations! And know, proud Prince, wantoning it here in purple and fine linen” — at a sign from Prince Ralph, the guards began to draw him away — “with your countesses and earls! Know that the Lord shall avenge me with a great and terrible vengeance! I call on Him! I, James Stucker, call on Him to blast you” — He was now shrieking from the doorway, struggling with the guards — “to blast you with terrible punishments! For not a sparrow falls to the ground but He heeds it! Not a sparrow!” The guards drew the curtain, and hurried him away; and for a minute his voice came to them in fainter and fainter shrieks of “Not a sparrow! — Not a sparrow! — Not a sparrow!”
When his voice died away among the corridors, Ruth said thoughtfully, “There is something in what he says. His martyrdom will prove him right to many of the Varandals. Is there no other way of keeping him silent?”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
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.