182 



But while the eye lingers upon the display of natural beauty spread out so 

 profusely before it, the memory will be carried back to scenes of the dim past, — 

 to that period in every nation's history when the fire and sword of the invader, 

 with the invariable accompaniment of civil feud and bloodshed, seem by an in- 

 scrutable law, the necessary precursors of religion and civilization. 



On this border-land, where the ancient Briton so obstinately contested every 

 inch of his native territory with successful invaders, and where the good old rule 

 of bird and beast 



That those should take who have the power, 

 And those should keep who can 



obtained in a great measure amongst men, traces are not wanting of the extent 

 and severity of these oft-recurring contests. 



But our interest to-day will centre in the once formidable stronghold where 

 we are now assembled. To write the history of Painscastle seems very much like 

 writing the history of one stone in a building, though that stone has little or no 

 importance apart from the building itself. The castle, like all others, has no 

 doubt a history of its own, if one only knew it, which wotild be interesting enough. 

 One would like to know, when one looks now on its mouldering remnants, what 

 sort of a place it was in its glory ; who and what manner of men they were to 

 whom it was a home ; how they lived when they were not fighting ; how they 

 employed and amused themselves ; for, in spite of the troubled character of the 

 times, they could not always have been in "battle order." But, as we cannot 



Draw oblivion's pall aside 



And mark the long-forgotten urn, 



and as we know nothing whatever of the internal or domestic life of Painscastle, 

 we must view it in connection with the history of the times in which it sprang into 

 existence, and in this respect, though the actual facts we know of it are few, it is 

 interesting. 



Placed on the border line between two races, it forms one of a series of 

 fortresses which tell of the progress of perhaps the most important and interesting 

 conquest the world has ever witnessed— the subjugation of these Islands to the 

 rule of that race in whose hands they have become the ruling power of the universe. 



We cannot, of course, help admiring the courage and resolution with which 

 the Welsh people resisted for two centuries the advance of the Norman conquest, 

 although it is a mistake to suppose that patriotism of the purest kind was always 

 the animating motive of their chiefs, but it is not to be denied that the result of 

 that conquest was to the Briton, as it had been to the Saxon, an almost unmixed 

 blessing. 



Anyone who has read the details of early Welsh history must admit this, 

 and there is one comforting reflection on viewing the mouldering ruins, or the 

 grass-grown site of one of these ancient border castles, that though we now look 

 back to them as relics of a barbarous age, they really mark an important stage in 

 the civilization of the world, however far that stage has now been left behind. 



