But now
there is no longer need for an army. There is no one to fight. Some of
the young men grumble, but the old ones rejoice at the change.
Formerly, they had to go to the plough with their spears and their
swords beside them, because they never knew when marauders from the
hills might sweep down; besides, when there was war, they might be
called away for weeks, while the crops were wasting upon the ground.
"As to the younger men who grumble, I say to them, 'If you are tired
of a peaceful life, go and enlist in a Company's regiment;' and every
year some of them do so.
"In other ways, the change is good. Now that the Rajah has no longer
to keep up an army, he is not obliged to squeeze the cultivators.
Therefore, they pay but a light rent for their lands, and the Rajah is
far better off than his father was; so that, on all sides, there is
content and prosperity. But, even now, the fear of Mysore has not
quite died out."
"My position, Margaret," the Rajah said, after Dick had left the room,
"is a very precarious one. When Hyder Ali marched down here, eight
years ago, he swept the whole country, from the foot of the hills to
the sea coast. My father would have been glad to stand neutral, but
was, of course, bound to go with the English, as the Nabob of Arcot,
his nominal sovereign, went with them.
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