Without her aid, they were simply remarkable for their
similarity, their vacancy, their unfitness for any modern purpose save
that of sheep-pens or lumber-rooms. Destitute of windows, so that the
sun and air found admittance only through the doorway, without
fireplaces, boarded floors, or plastered walls, they presented simply so
many square feet of space walled in by stone and mortar. But Fancy had
the power to enliven, furnish, people them. She suggested that their
very number was an indication of sociability, excitement, noise, and
mirth. Here, as in all feudal dwellings, the vast disproportion between
the space allotted to the dependents and that reserved for the lord of
the manor pointed to the time when each castle was a walled city, each
baronial hall the home of a crowd of petty retainers. In that long-ago,
what multitudes of voices had stirred the silence of the court-yard! The
bare walls of the apartments then were hung with breast-plate, spear,
and cross-bow,--trophies of war and the chase furnished decorations
suited to the taste of the occupants, and the hides of slaughtered
beasts carpeted the cold floor. Stirring tales of love and warfare
gathered little knots of listeners; wandering minstrels sought
hospitality, and repaid it in songs and rhymes; the beef and the bowl
went round; my lord's jester made his privileged way into every circle
in turn, and cracked his jokes at everybody's expense; and pretty Bess,
my lady's maid, peeped in at the open door, just in time to join in the
laugh against her lover.
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