You will find young men, well-born,
well-educated, who go away from their friends and their native place,
who go into a remote village, and offer to work at the commonest trade,
at apprentices' wages. They settle there; they marry; they preach
nothing but the value of honest work, and extreme sobriety, and respect
for superiors. Then, after some years, when they are regarded as beyond
all suspicion, they begin, cautiously and slowly, to spread abroad
their propaganda--to teach respect rather for human liberty, for
justice, for self-sacrifice, for those passions that prompt a nation to
adventure everything for its freedom. Well, you know the end. The man
may be found out--banished or executed; but the association remains. The
Russians at this moment have no notion how wide-spread and powerful it
is."
"The head-quarters, are they in Russia itself?" asked Brand, on the
watch for any admission.
"Who knows?" said the other, absently. "Perhaps there are none."
"None? Surely there must be some power to say what is to be done, to
enforce obedience?"
"What if each man finds that in himself?" said Lind, with something of
the air of a dreamer coming over the firm and thoughtful and rugged
face.
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