There seems to have been always some
    sort of place where it is, for the passages and openings inside seem
    to accept or recognize it. It can be shut off if necessary--it would
    be in case of attack--by a great slab of steel, just like the door of
    a safe, which slides from inside the wall, and can be operated from
    either inside or outside--if you know how. That is from my room or
    from within the keep. The mechanism is a secret, and no one but
    Rooke and I know it. The room opens out through a great French
    window--the French window is modern, I take it, and was arranged by
    or for Uncle Roger; I think there must have been always a large
    opening there, for centuries at least--which opens on a wide terrace
    or balcony of white marble, extending right and left. From this a
    white marble stair lies straight in front of the window, and leads
    down to the garden. The balcony and staircase are quite ancient--of
    old Italian work, beautifully carved, and, of course, weather-worn
    through centuries. There is just that little tinging of green here
    and there which makes all outdoor marble so charming. It is hard to
    believe at times that it is a part of a fortified castle, it is so
    elegant and free and open. The first glance of it would make a
    burglar's heart glad. He would say to himself: "Here is the sort of
    crib I like when I'm on the job. You can just walk in and out as you
    choose." But, Aunt Janet, old Roger was cuter than any burglar. He
    had the place so guarded that the burglar would have been a baffled
    burglar. There are two steel shields which can slide out from the
    wall and lock into the other side right across the whole big window. One is a grille of steel bands that open out into diamond-shaped
    lozenges. Nothing bigger than a kitten could get through; and yet
    you can see the garden and the mountains and the whole view--much the
    same as you ladies can see through your veils. The other is a great
    sheet of steel, which slides out in a similar way in different
    grooves. It is not, of course, so heavy and strong as the safe-door
    which covers the little opening in the main wall, but Rooke tells me
    it is proof against the heaviest rifle-hall. Having told you this, I must tell you, too, Aunt Janet, lest you
    should be made anxious by the _arriere-pensee_ of all these warlike
    measures of defence, that I always sleep at night with one of these
    iron screens across the window. Of course, when I am awake I leave
    it open. As yet I have tried only, but not used, the grille; and I
    don't think I shall ever use anything else, for it is a perfect
    guard. If it should be tampered with from outside it would sound an
    alarm at the head of the bed, and the pressing of a button would roll
    out the solid steel screen in front of it. As a matter of fact, I
    have been so used to the open that I don't feel comfortable shut in. I only close windows against cold or rain. The weather here is
    delightful--as yet, at all events--but they tell me that the rainy
    season will be on us before very long. I think you will like my den, aunty dear, though it will doubtless be
    a worry to you to see it so untidy. But that can't be helped. I
    must be untidy _somewhere_; and it is best in my own den! Again I find my letter so long that I must cut it off now and go on
    again to-night. So this must go as it stands. I shall not cause you
    to wait to hear all I can tell you about our new home. Your loving
                                                                   RUPERT. _From Rupert Sent Leger_, _Vissarion_, _to Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom_. _January_ 29, 1907. MY DEAR AUNT JANET,

    My den looks out, as I told you in my last letter, on the garden, or,
    to speak more accurately, on _one_ of the gardens, for there are
    acres of them. This is the old one, which must be almost as old as
    the Castle itself, for it was within the defences in the old days of
    bows. The wall that surrounds the inner portion of it has long ago
    been levelled, but sufficient remains at either end where it joined
    the outer defences to show the long casemates for the bowmen to shoot
    through and the raised stone gallery where they stood. It is just
    the same kind of building as the stone-work of the sentry's walk on
    the roof and of the great old guard-room under it. But whatever the garden may have been, and no matter how it was
    guarded, it is a most lovely place. There are whole sections of
    garden here of various styles--Greek, Italian, French, German, Dutch,
    British, Spanish, African, Moorish--all the older nationalities. I
    am going to have a new one laid out for you--a Japanese garden. I
    have sent to the great gardener of Japan, Minaro, to make the plans
    for it, and to come over with workmen to carry it out. He is to
    bring trees and shrubs and flowers and stone-work, and everything
    that can be required; and you shall superintend the finishing, if not
    the doing, of it yourself. We have such a fine head of water here,
    and the climate is, they tell me, usually so lovely that we can do
    anything in the gardening way. If it should ever turn out that the
    climate does not suit, we shall put a great high glass roof over it,
    and _make_ a suitable climate. This garden in front of my room is the old Italian garden. It must
    have been done with extraordinary taste and care, for there is not a
    bit of it which is not rarely beautiful. Sir Thomas Browne himself,
    for all his _Quincunx_, would have been delighted with it, and have
    found material for another "Garden of Cyrus." It is so big that
    there are endless "episodes" of garden beauty I think all Italy must
    have been ransacked in old times for garden stone-work of exceptional
    beauty; and these treasures have been put together by some
    master-hand. Even the formal borders of the walks are of old porous
    stone, which takes the weather-staining so beautifully, and are
    carved in endless variety. Now that the gardens have been so long
    neglected or left in abeyance, the green staining has become perfect. Though the stone-work is itself intact, it has all the picturesque
    effect of the wear and ruin wrought by many centuries. I am having
    it kept for you just as it is, except that I have had the weeds and
    undergrowth cleared away so that its beauties might be visible. But it is not merely the architect work of the garden that is so
    beautiful, nor is the assembling there of the manifold wealth of
    floral beauty--there is the beauty that Nature creates by the hand of
    her servant, Time. You see, Aunt Janet, how the beautiful garden
    inspires a danger-hardened old tramp like me to high-grade sentiments
    of poetic fancy!