CHAPTER XVII LIFE AT WALLINGFORD CASTLE
In sketching the life of a mediæval castle, we have dwelt too much upon the brighter side of the picture. There was a darker one, contrasting with the outward pomp and circumstance as the dungeons with the gay halls above.
What then was the interior of those dark towers, which we contemplate only in their ruined state? Too often, the surrounding peasants looked at them with affright: the story of Blue-Beard is not a mere tale, it is rather a veritable tradition: what was the lord to his vassals, whom his own wife regarded with such great fear? We know one of the brood by the civil process issued against him—Gilles de Retz—the torturer of children. It has been said that the "Front de Boeuf" of Sir Walter Scott is but a poor creature, a feeble specimen of what mediæval barons could be. A more terrible portrait has been given in recent days by Erckmann-Chatrian, in their story, The Forest House.
And such, we regret to say, by degrees did Brian Fitz-Count become. Few men can stand the test of absolute power, and the power of a mediæval lord was almost absolute in his own domain.
And the outbreak of civil war, by loosening the bonds of society, gave him the power of doing this, so that it was soon said that Wallingford Castle was little better than a den of brigands.
The very construction of these old castles, so far as one can see them, tells us far more than books can: men-at-arms, pages, valets, all were shut in for the night, sleeping in common in those vaulted apartments. The day summoned them to the watch-towers and battlements, where they resembled the eagle or hawk, soaring aloft in hope of seeing their natural prey.
Nor was it often long before some convoy of merchandise passing along the high road, some well appointed travellers or the like, tempted them forth on their swift horses, lance in hand, to cry like the modern robber, "Your money or your life," or in sober truth, to drag their prisoners to their dungeons, and hold them to ransom, in default of which they amused themselves by torturing them.
Such inmates of the castles were only happy when they got out upon their adventures—and as in the old fable of "The Frogs and the Boys,"—what was sport to them was death to their neighbours.