hardly needs arguing.”
“I don’t say it does. But I believe there used to be such laws in terms which were far worse than ours.”
“That’s just what I’m doubting.” Gleda recognized that it would be best to avoid assertion of incredible knowledge. But had not Lemno told her so much? And who would check on the exact limitations of that? She went on: “There was a time called the Christian era, which Lemno was telling me about yesterday. He said it was worse than this. But no one could have killed anyone under their law without the probability that he would be caught and hanged.”
“Doesn’t that prove what he said?”
“Does it? You mustn’t think I’m complaining about what happened to Destra. I know I’m not the one to do that. But—”
“I should think not, indeed!”
“Well, that’s what I said. But—”
“There’s no but about it. It needed doing, whether he’d caught you or not.”
“Do you mean she was such a bad woman?”
“I don’t mean that she did the kind of things that laws used to punish. There must often have been excuses for them. What they called temptations. But she did worse things. She used to make Lemno’s life wretched with her tongue, and in other ways. It went on until Relf made some excuse to get her by herself at our house, and when she went home she had less skin on her buttocks than when we put her across a chair. She was a lot better for that, especially after we made her come next week and thank us for what we’d done.”
“Doesn’t that just show what good things punishments are?”
The question reduced Plera to a short silence, after which she said frankly: “But it wasn’t quite the same thing. You see, we knew what we were doing. It wasn’t like strangers butting in, and talking as though a law were something above themselves, without using their own judgment, like serving a god. And when you talk of killing people you’ve got nothing against, because they killed someone who may have driven them mad—well, I should say that the first killing might have been bad or good, but the second would be bad beyond doubt at all.”
“You seem to take no account of it being a warning to other killers.”
“Well, as to that, you’d have to prove that there’d be more than twice as many killings if there were no punishments, before you’d have a leg to stand on. And even then there’d be the question of whether it’s right to do things that you know are wrong because there may be good results in another way. But that wasn’t really the argument that made us decide that no civilization could be any good unless it were without laws. It was the fact that people felt that they’d got to act according to law, even though they might think it bad for the case they tried. They thought law was superhuman; and subhuman was what it was.”
“I think you have overlooked one thing in what you were saying—that murderers were not usually violent killers of provocative pests. They often had much meaner motives, and their crimes were very cunningly done.”
“Then it must have been very hard to be quite sure they’d got hold of the right man. And very tempting to make a guess, after all the fuss and trouble there’d been; and those who guess may guess wrong.
“Don’t you think that if it had been left for general discussion—if anyone wanted that—or for those who knew most about it to deal with it in their own way, or to leave it alone, there might have been better justice, as well as a lot less misery?”
“It does sound reasonable,” Gleda conceded readily. “It seems to me that it would depend most upon the characters of those in whose hands it would be left.” Perhaps, she thought, laws are good for those who would not otherwise conform to civilized ways, but no civilization can be secure until it has arrived at a higher stage. But it also occurred to her, none too soon, that she might easily reduce her own popularity by too warm a defense of an ancient time, which should be nothing to her. And, beyond that, she was less than sure that these people were wholly wrong.
CHAPTER X: A QUESTION ABOUT CHILDREN
“Plera spoke as though she were coming with us,” Gleda said, as she and Lemno were packing their bags. “I shouldn’t have thought the women would be so keen on it, seeing how dangerous it’s likely to be. Will there be anyone else from there?”
“I doubt it. There’s only Relf’s father, who’s getting feeble, and his sister, who’s rather lame. But as to the women going, you must remember how hungry they are. I don’t say they’ll all want to go over the river. But there won’t be many round here who won’t get as far as the bank. And I expect they’re hoping for a bit of our meat, which most of them can’t possibly get.”
“How about leaving the children?” As she asked this natural question, it occurred to her for the first time that she had seen none; but, after all, in two homes only— And yet, Destra’s insides had shown signs of—
“The question, he said, “doesn’t arise, except at the rearing-pens, where proper arrangements will doubtless be made. But they are too far away for anyone to join our expedition from that district.”
“You don’t keep your children at home?”
“No. Do you keep yours? But we’ve no law about that now, and every year there are more people who rear them themselves, although it makes their lives harder in many ways.”
“You weren’t allowed to before?”
“Not when we were under the curse of law. It wasn’t likely that a bureaucracy, when it became well established, would leave people to make their own choice in such a vital matter as that. The law was that every young married woman must contribute three children—one every four years—and if she should fail to do that, she would be removed, and the man provided with a more amenable wife.”
“That was hard on her, if she couldn’t.”
“It was expensive, but not as bad as it sounds. People have been adroit in all ages to avoid the worst effects of the laws they are weak enough to let other men lay on their backs. There were many women who liked to produce children—or who made a trade of it—and they would sell them at the best price they could get. It meant that occasional surplus children had to be destroyed, which everyone regretted, but they argued that it was the law, and that respect for law is the foundation of every civilized state. So it may be; and that was why we blew the foundation up.”
“Have you got any children there?”
“Destra had two. She would not keep them here, so they had to go. Their numbers are branded beside the door. In that respect, the old system has been continued, it not being worth anyone’s while to object.”
“But, if I have a child, I can keep it here?”
“Yes. It’s a free country now.”
“I don’t wonder people came to hate laws.”
“Yes. I suppose what they used to call communism in the era I was talking about yesterday will always defeat itself in the end in that way. But it’s a hard road. I’ve got to go out now, and arrange for some of our neighbours to take the canoe. We shall be loaded enough, without that.”
CHAPTER XI: MAINLY CONCERNING
