The Last Lords of Gardonal by William Gilbert

The Last Lords of Gardonal. (1867). William Gilbert. Its author, William Gilbert (1804–1890) was an English writer and Royal Navy surgeon. He was also the father of W. S. Gilbert, a dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator. ONE of the most picturesque objects of the valley of the Engadin is the ruined castle of Gardonal, near the village of Madaline. In the feudal times it was the seat of a family of barons, who possessed as their patrimony the whole of the valley, which with the castle had descended from father to son for many generations. The two last of the race were brothers; handsome, well-made, fine-looking young men, but in nature they more resembled fiends than human beings—so cruel, rapacious, and tyrannical were they. During the earlier part of his life their father had been careful of his patrimony. He had also been unusually just to the serfs on his estates, and in consequence they had attained to such a condition of comfort and prosperity as was rarely met with among those in the power of the feudal lords of the country; most of whom were arbitrary and exacting in the extreme.