That would be a nuisance when we are finding our way about in a new
    country and trying to reconcile all sorts of opposites in a whole new
    country with new people, whom at first we shan't understand, and who
    certainly won't understand us; where every man carries a gun with as
    little thought of it as he has of buttons! Good-bye for a while. Your loving
                                                                   RUPERT. _From Rupert Sent Leger_, _Vissarion_, _to Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom_. _February_ 3, 1907. I am back in my own room again. Already it seems to me that to get
    here again is like coming home. I have been going about for the last
    few days amongst the mountaineers and trying to make their
    acquaintance. It is a tough job; and I can see that there will be
    nothing but to stick to it. They are in reality the most primitive
    people I ever met--the most fixed to their own ideas, which belong to
    centuries back. I can understand now what people were like in
    England--not in Queen Elizabeth's time, for that was civilized time,
    but in the time of Coeur-de-Lion, or even earlier--and all the time
    with the most absolute mastery of weapons of precision. Every man
    carries a rifle--and knows how to use it, too. I do believe they
    would rather go without their clothes than their guns if they had to
    choose between them. They also carry a handjar, which used to be
    their national weapon. It is a sort of heavy, straight cutlass, and
    they are so expert with it as well as so strong that it is as facile
    in the hands of a Blue Mountaineer as is a foil in the hands of a
    Persian _maitre d'armes_. They are so proud and reserved that they
    make one feel quite small, and an "outsider" as well. I can see
    quite well that they rather resent my being here at all. It is not
    personal, for when alone with me they are genial, almost brotherly;
    but the moment a few of them get together they are like a sort of
    jury, with me as the criminal before them. It is an odd situation,
    and quite new to me. I am pretty well accustomed to all sorts of
    people, from cannibals to Mahatmas, but I'm blessed if I ever struck
    such a type as this--so proud, so haughty, so reserved, so distant,
    so absolutely fearless, so honourable, so hospitable. Uncle Roger's
    head was level when he chose them out as a people to live amongst. Do you know, Aunt Janet, I can't help feeling that they are very much
    like your own Highlanders--only more so. I'm sure of one thing: that
    in the end we shall get on capitally together. But it will be a slow
    job, and will need a lot of patience. I have a feeling in my bones
    that when they know me better they will be very loyal and very true;
    and I am not a hair's-breadth afraid of them or anything they shall
    or might do. That is, of course, if I live long enough for them to
    have time to know me. Anything may happen with such an indomitable,
    proud people to whom pride is more than victuals. After all, it only
    needs one man out of a crowd to have a wrong idea or to make a
    mistake as to one's motive--and there you are. But it will be all
    right that way, I am sure. I am come here to stay, as Uncle Roger
    wished. And stay I shall even if it has to be in a little bed of my
    own beyond the garden--seven feet odd long, and not too narrow--or
    else a stone-box of equal proportions in the vaults of St. Sava's
    Church across the Creek--the old burial-place of the Vissarions and
    other noble people for a good many centuries back . . . I have been reading over this letter, dear Aunt Janet, and I am
    afraid the record is rather an alarming one. But don't you go
    building up superstitious horrors or fears on it. Honestly, I am
    only joking about death--a thing to which I have been rather prone
    for a good many years back. Not in very good taste, I suppose, but
    certainly very useful when the old man with the black wings goes
    flying about you day and night in strange places, sometimes visible
    and at others invisible. But you can always hear wings, especially
    in the dark, when you cannot see them. _You_ know that, Aunt Janet,
    who come of a race of warriors, and who have special sight behind or
    through the black curtain. Honestly, I am in no whit afraid of the Blue Mountaineers, nor have I
    a doubt of them. I love them already for their splendid qualities,
    and I am prepared to love them for themselves. I feel, too, that
    they will love me (and incidentally they are sure to love you). I
    have a sort of undercurrent of thought that there is something in
    their minds concerning me--something not painful, but disturbing;
    something that has a base in the past; something that has hope in it
    and possible pride, and not a little respect. As yet they can have
    had no opportunity of forming such impression from seeing me or from
    any thing I have done. Of course, it may be that, although they are
    fine, tall, stalwart men, I am still a head and shoulders over the
    tallest of them that I have yet seen. I catch their eyes looking up
    at me as though they were measuring me, even when they are keeping
    away from me, or, rather, keeping me from them at arm's length. I
    suppose I shall understand what it all means some day. In the
    meantime there is nothing to do but to go on my own way--which is
    Uncle Roger's--and wait and be patient and just. I have learned the
    value of that, any way, in my life amongst strange peoples. Good-night. Your loving
                                                                   RUPERT. _From Rupert Sent Leger_, _Vissarion_, _to Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom_. _February_ 24, 1907. MY DEAR AUNT JANET,

    I am more than rejoiced to hear that you are coming here so soon. This isolation is, I think, getting on my nerves. I thought for a
    while last night that I was getting on, but the reaction came all too
    soon. I was in my room in the east turret, the room on the
    _corbeille_, and saw here and there men passing silently and swiftly
    between the trees as though in secret. By-and-by I located their
    meeting-place, which was in a hollow in the midst of the wood just
    outside the "natural" garden, as the map or plan of the castle calls
    it. I stalked that place for all I was worth, and suddenly walked
    straight into the midst of them. There were perhaps two or three
    hundred gathered, about the very finest lot of men I ever saw in my
    life. It was in its way quite an experience, and one not likely to
    be repeated, for, as I told you, in this country every man carries a
    rifle, and knows how to use it. I do not think I have seen a single
    man (or married man either) without his rifle since I came here. I
    wonder if they take them with them to bed!