Beric the Briton | Page 2

we might
copy them with advantage. They are a great people. Compare their
splendid mansions and their regular orderly life, their manners and their
ways, with our rough huts, and our feasts, ending as often as not with
quarrels and brawls. Look at their arts, their power of turning stone into
lifelike figures, and above all, the way in which they can transfer their
thoughts to white leaves, so that others, many many years hence, can
read them and know all that was passing, and what men thought and
did in the long bygone. Truly it is marvellous."
"You are half Romanized, Beric," his companion said roughly.

"I think not," the other said quietly; "I should be worse than a fool had I
lived, as I have done, a hostage among them for four years without
seeing that there is much to admire, much that we could imitate with
advantage, in their life and ways; but there is no reason because they
are wiser and far more polished, and in many respects a greater people
than we, that they should come here to be our masters. These things are
desirable, but they are as nothing to freedom. I have said that I like
them more for being among them. I like them more for many reasons.
They are grave and courteous in their manner to each other; they obey
their own laws; every man has his rights; and while all yield obedience
to their superiors, the superiors respect the rights of those below them.
The highest among them cannot touch the property or the life of the
lowest in rank. All this seems to me excellent; but then, on the other
hand, my blood boils in my veins at the contempt in which they hold us;
at their greed, their rapacity, their brutality, their denial to us of all
rights. In their eyes we are but savages, but wild men, who may be
useful for tilling the ground for them, but who, if troublesome, should
be hunted down and slain like wild beasts. I admire them for what they
can do; I respect them for their power and learning; but I hate them as
our oppressors."
"That is better, Beric, much better. I had begun to fear that the grand
houses and the splendour of these Romans might have sapped your
patriotism. I hate them all; I hate changes; I would live as we have
always lived."
"But you forget, Boduoc, that we ourselves have not been standing still.
Though our long past forefathers, when they crossed from Gaul wave
after wave, were rude warriors, we have been learning ever since from
Gaul as the Gauls have learned from the Romans, and the Romans
themselves admit that we have advanced greatly since the days when,
under their Caesar, they first landed here. Look at the town on the hill
there. Though 'tis Roman now 'tis not changed so much from what it
was under that great king Cunobeline, while his people had knowledge
of many things of which we and the other tribes of the Iceni knew
nothing."
"What good did it do them?" the other asked scornfully; "they lie
prostrate under the Roman yoke. It was easy to destroy their towns
while we, who have few towns to destroy, live comparatively free.

Look across at Camalodunum, Cunobeline's capital. Where are the men
who built the houses, who dressed in soft garments, who aped the
Romans, and who regarded us as well nigh savage men? Gone every
one of them; hewn down on their own hearthstones, or thrust out with
their wives and families to wander homeless--is there one left of them
in yonder town? Their houses they were so proud of, their cultivated
fields, their wealth of all kinds has been seized by the Romans. Did
they fight any better for their Roman fashions? Not they; the kingdom
of Cunobeline, from the Thames to the western sea, fell to pieces at a
touch and it was only among the wild Silures that Caractacus was able
to make any great resistance."
"But we did no better, Boduoc; Ostorius crushed us as easily as
Claudius crushed the Trinobantes. It is no use our setting ourselves
against change. All that you urge against the Trinobantes and the tribes
of Kent the Silures might urge with equal force against us. You must
remember that we were like them not so many ages back. The
intercourse of the Gauls with us on this eastern sea coast, and with the
Kentish tribes, has changed us greatly. We are no longer, like the
western tribes, mere hunters living in shelters of boughs and roaming
the forests. Our dress, with our long mantles, our loose vests and
trousers, differs as widely from that of these western tribes as it