THE KEEP 255 



creatures, gaunt and unkempt, who crouched behind 

 iron bars and piteously adjured him to " remember the 

 poor debtors." Poor devils ! condemned by the 

 brutaUty of obsolescent laws to moulder in captivity in 

 expiation for pitiful debts. But brutal though we were 

 until comparatively recent years, we must not believe 

 Victor Hugo when he says that in 1820 the grim 

 picturesqueness of the Castle Hill was enhanced by the 

 sj^ectacle of three malefactors' bodies, tarred and 

 obscene, which swung in the winds of Heaven. That 

 picturesque detail is more romantic than truthful ; 

 but the man who, like Victor Hugo, could write 

 seriousl}^ in another place of the Firth of Forth as 

 " la premiere de la quatrieme " is not to be taken for 

 either geographer or historian. 



All these evidences of a brutal age are gone, and 

 Dover Castle is remarkable nowadays chiefly for the 

 extraordinary way in which old and new are grafted 

 one upon another. Side by side with the Xorman 

 Keep are modern magazines and military storehouses, 

 while the curtain walls of the wards give support 

 to repositories of Royal Artillery shot and shell. 

 Even the roof of the Keep is put to practical purpose 

 by the War Department, for it has been vaulted and 

 strengthened to carry a battery of heavy cannon. 

 The Keep is of three floors ; on the third floor are 

 the State apartments in which Charles the First 

 welcomed his Queen, and where, seventeen years 

 later, he bade her a sad adieu. They are gloomy 

 rooms, heavy with suspicion of danger, conspiracy, 

 and intrigue, and are approached by a staircase 

 flanked with secret guard-rooms ; the walls pierced 

 with arrow-slits, scarcely to be distinguished in the 

 darkness of the place, even when you are bidden to 

 look for them. 



It is strange to read in the struggles between Charles 

 and the Parliament with what laxity fortresses were 

 often held for either side. Dover Castle is a case in 

 point. It was held for the King by a small force whose 



