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 68 of 254
Chapter VI · Prince Melinsky Arranges a Dog-Fight · pp. 59–66
The Keepers of the People
p. 64“Scratched again! Let it be! Let it be! Will you, Melinsky? It did its best!” cried Lord Lisdor.
Ralph Falcon set Althea down; and she stood, patting the panting Alrasch, and trembling in every limb.
“Now — what does it all mean?” said Lord Lisdor.
“I found them fighting, Alrasch muzzled; I choked the other brute off, and let them fight fair,” said Ralph Falcon.
“Yes; but how came this wolf-hound here? I don’t understand,” said Lord Lisdor; and it was plain that he was very angry.
“It is my dog,” said Prince Melinsky sullenly. “I sent for it from town. I was walking with it in the park, when we came on the other. The fight was an accident.”
“It was not. I saw your face,” said Althea in a faint voice.
Prince Melinsky scowled at her; Lord Lisdor looked at her closely.
“I believe my cousin,” he said shortly.
“What! You dare?” cried the Russian.
“Dare?” said Lord Lisdor scornfully. “Dare? It was no accident. You sent for the dog on purpose. Set it on Alrasch muzzled. I know your foreign fair play; I’ve been there. When Alrasch was with the child, too!”
“This cursed country! Anywhere else in Europe!” said Prince Melinsky, hoarse with rage.
“Anywhere else in Europe I’d shoot you like a dog for frightening the child!” said Lord Lisdor.
The two of them glared at one another, their faces flushed, their eyes savage.
“Alrasch is mine: it is my quarrel,” said Ralph Falcon in his even, quiet voice.
“I am your host: the quarrel is mine,” said Lord Lisdor. “Besides, he frightened the child.”
There came a little gasp behind them; and they turned to find Althea fallen in a faint. Ralph Falcon caught her up; Lord Lisdor ran to the stream that flowed through the park, for water; Prince Melinsky stood gnawing his moustache. The water revived Althea; but she lay in Ralph Falcon’s arms nerveless, and broken.
“Bring her along, Ralph. A carriage shall be ready to take you to the afternoon train, Prince Melinsky,” said Lord Lisdor.
“I will send a friend,” said Prince Melinsky.
“You need not trouble. We’re not in a melodrama. And you’re not the kind of man I would meet,” said Lord Lisdor.
Prince Melinsky turned to Ralph Falcon, and said, in a voice that made it a threat, “We shall meet again.”
“I hope so” said Ralph Falcon quietly.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book I, Chapter VI · Prince Melinsky Arranges a Dog-Fight · Book I, Chapter VI · Prince Melinsky Arranges a Dog-Fight · pp. 59–66
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.