So long as he discharges his feudal obligations a seigneur can run his barony practically to suit himself. If he treats his own vassals and his peasants too outrageously they may cry out to the suzerain for justice, and sometimes the overlord will delight in an excuse to humble an arrogant feudatory. But the limits of interference are well marked. No seigneur should undermine a faithful vassal's hold on his own subjects. Every noble will feel his own rights threatened if a suzerain begins to meddle with a dependent, even if the reason for doing so is manifest. Many a baron can therefore play the outrageous tyrant if so the devil inspires him. He has (as we have seen) to observe the vested rights of his subordinates on the fief; otherwise he may provoke a dangerous mutiny within his own castle.[41] Baron Garnier of St. Aliquis, however, has been typical of many of his class. Prisoners, travelers, peasants are subject to unspeakably brutal treatment. As has been written concerning one such seigneur: "He was a very Pluto, Megæra, Cerberus, or anything you can conceive still more horrible. He preferred the slaughter of his captives to their ransom. He tore out the eyes of his own children, when in sport they hid their faces under his cloak. He impaled persons of both sexes on stakes. To butcher men in the most horrible manner was to him an agreeable feast." Of another such baron, the trembling monks record: "When anyone by force or fraud fell into his hands, the captive might truly say, 'The pains of hell have compassed me about.' Homicide was his passion and glory. He treated his wife in an unspeakably brutal manner. Men feared him, bowed down to him and worshiped him!"[42] [Sidenote: Types of Evil and Good Barons] Evidently, such outrageous seigneurs hold their lieges in a kind of fascinated obedience, just as do the emirs and atabegs among the Infidels. Of course, they treat merchants as merely so many objects for plunder. If they do not watch the roads themselves, they make bargains with professional robbers, allowing the latter to infest their seigneuries in return for an agreed share of their booty. Even noble folk are liable to be seized, imprisoned, and perhaps tortured to get a ransom. If you cannot find the deniers, you may leave your bones in a foul dungeon.