But before I begin to describe Vissarion I shall throw a sop to you
    as a chatelaine; that may give you patience to read the rest. The
    Castle needs a lot of things to make it comfortable--as you would
    consider it. In fact, it is absolutely destitute of everything of a
    domestic nature. Uncle Roger had it vetted on the defence side, and
    so far it could stand a siege. But it couldn't cook a dinner or go
    through a spring-cleaning! As you know, I am not much up in domestic
    matters, and so I cannot give you details; but you may take it that
    it wants everything. I don't mean furniture, or silver, or even
    gold-plate, or works of art, for it is full of the most magnificent
    old things that you can imagine. I think Uncle Roger must have been
    a collector, and gathered a lot of good things in all sorts of
    places, stored them for years, and then sent them here. But as to
    glass, china, delft, all sorts of crockery, linen, household
    appliances and machinery, cooking utensils--except of the
    simplest--there are none. I don't think Uncle Roger could have lived
    here more than on a temporary picnic. So far as I only am concerned,
    I am all right; a gridiron and a saucepan are all _I_ want--and I can
    use them myself. But, dear Aunt Janet, I don't want you to pig it. I would like you to have everything you can imagine, and all of the
    very best. Cost doesn't count now for us, thanks to Uncle Roger; and
    so I want you to order all. I know you, dear--being a woman--won't
    object to shopping. But it will have to be wholesale. This is an
    enormous place, and will swallow up all you can buy--like a
    quicksand. Do as you like about choosing, but get all the help you
    can. Don't be afraid of getting too much. You can't, or of being
    idle when you are here. I assure you that when you come there will
    be so much to do and so many things to think of that you will want to
    get away from it all. And, besides, Aunt Janet, I hope you won't be
    too long. Indeed, I don't wish to be selfish, but your boy is
    lonely, and wants you. And when you get here you will be an EMPRESS. I don't altogether like doing so, lest I should offend a
    millionairess like you; but it may facilitate matters, and the way's
    of commerce are strict, though devious. So I send you a cheque for
    1,000 pounds for the little things: and a letter to the bank to
    honour your own cheques for any amount I have got. I think, by the way, I should, if I were you, take or send out a few
    servants--not too many at first, only just enough to attend on our
    two selves. You can arrange to send for any more you may want later. Engage them, and arrange for their being paid--when they are in our
    service we must treat them well--and then they can be at our call as
    you find that we want them. I think you should secure, say, fifty or
    a hundred--'tis an awfu' big place, Aunt Janet! And in the same way
    will you secure--and, of course, arrange for pay similarly--a hundred
    men, exclusive of any servants you think it well to have. I should
    like the General, if he can give the time, to choose or pass them. I
    want clansmen that I can depend on, if need be. We are going to live
    in a country which is at present strange to us, and it is well to
    look things in the face. I know Sir Colin will only have men who are
    a credit to Scotland and to Ross and to Croom--men who will impress
    the Blue Mountaineers. I know they will take them to their
    hearts--certainly if any of them are bachelors the girls will! Forgive me! But if we are to settle here, our followers will
    probably want to settle also. Moreover, the Blue Mountaineers may
    want followers also! And will want them to settle, too, and have
    successors! Now for the description of the place. Well, I simply can't just now. It is all so wonderful and so beautiful. The Castle--I have written
    so much already about other things that I really must keep the Castle
    for another letter! Love to Sir Colin if he is at Croom. And oh,
    dear Aunt Janet, how I wish that my dear mother was coming out! It
    all seems so dark and empty without her. How she would have enjoyed
    it! How proud she would have been! And, my dear, if she could be
    with us again, how grateful she would have been to you for all you
    have done for her boy! As I am, believe me, most truly and sincerely
    and affectionately grateful. Your loving
                                                                   RUPERT. _Rupert Sent Leger_, _Vissarion_, _to Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom_. _January_ 26, 1907. MY DEAR AUNT JANET,

    Please read this as if it was a part of the letter I wrote yesterday. The Castle itself is so vast that I really can't describe it in
    detail. So I am waiting till you come; and then you and I will go
    over it together and learn all that we can about it. We shall take
    Rooke with us, and, as he is supposed to know every part of it, from
    the keep to the torture-chamber, we can spend a few days over it. Of
    course, I have been over most of it, since I came--that, is, I went
    at various times to see different portions--the battlements, the
    bastions, the old guard-room, the hall, the chapel, the walls, the
    roof. And I have been through some of the network of rock passages. Uncle Roger must have spent a mint of money on it, so far as I can
    see; and though I am not a soldier, I have been in so many places
    fortified in different ways that I am not entirely ignorant of the
    subject. He has restored it in such an up-to-date way that it is
    practically impregnable to anything under big guns or a siege-train. He has gone so far as to have certain outworks and the keep covered
    with armoured plating of what looks like harveyized steel. You will
    wonder when you see it. But as yet I really know only a few rooms,
    and am familiar with only one--my own room. The drawing-room--not
    the great hall, which is a vast place; the library--a magnificent
    one, but in sad disorder--we must get a librarian some day to put it
    in trim; and the drawing-room and boudoir and bedroom suite which I
    have selected for you, are all fine. But my own room is what suits
    me best, though I do not think you would care for it for yourself. If you do, you shall have it. It was Uncle Roger's own room when he
    stayed here; living in it for a few days served to give me more
    insight to his character--or rather to his mind--than I could have
    otherwise had. It is just the kind of place I like myself; so,
    naturally, I understand the other chap who liked it too. It is a
    fine big room, not quite within the Castle, but an outlying part of
    it. It is not detached, or anything of that sort, but is a sort of
    garden-room built on to it.