had in my body failed to shatter the lock, whereupon my choler rose
to heights hitherto unknown, I being a very mild-mannered, placid
person and averse to anything savouring of the tempestuous. I delivered
a savage and resounding thwack upon the broad oak panel of the door,
regardless of the destructiveness that might attend the effort. If any
one had told me that I couldn't splinter an oak board with a
sledge-hammer at a single blow I should have laughed in his face. But
as it turned out in this case I not only failed to split the panel but
broke off the sledge handle near the head, putting it wholly out of
commission for the time being as well as stinging my hands so severely
that I doubled up with pain and shouted words that Dame Schmick could
not put into her prayers.

The Schmicks fairly glowed with joy! Afterwards Max informed me that
the door was nearly six inches thick and often had withstood the
assaults of huge battering rams, back in the dim past when occasion
induced the primal baron to seek safety in the east wing, which, after
all, appears to have been the real, simon pure fortress. The west wing
was merely a setting for festal amenities and was by no means feudal
in its aspect or appeal. Here, as I came to know, the old barons
received their friends and feasted them and made merry with the flagon
and the horn of plenty; here the humble tithe payer came to settle his
dues with gold and silver instead of with blood; here the little barons
and baronesses romped and rioted with childish glee; and here the
barons grew fat and gross and soggy with laziness and prosperity, and
here they died in stupid quiescence. On the other side of that grim,
staunch old door they simply went to the other extreme in every
particular. There they killed their captives, butchered their enemies,
and sometimes died with the daggers of traitors in their shivering
backs.