But it must not be supposed that here at Saltwood we see the veritable walls that sheltered those assassins. There is nothing remaining at Saltwood that can take us back to the days of Becket. The oldest, as well as the most imposing, part is the entrance, whose great drum-towers, built or restored by the cruel and haughty Archbishop Courtenay about 1350, give a very striking impression to one who stands beneath them of the almost impregnable strength of such mediæval strongholds before the days of heavy ordnance--the walls are so thick and smooth, the loophole windows so high up and small, the stout gate so strengthened with iron. If to force such a place seems almost impossible in cold blood, what of the time when it was defended by determined persons who heaved heavy stones from the battlements, so high up, upon the devoted heads of the equally determined persons, so far below; when the molten lead poured down in silvery cascades, to burn through the flesh to the very bone, and the winged missiles sped from the arbalasts into the liver of many a gallant warrior?-- The oak door is heavy and brown; And with iron it is plated and machicollated, To pour boiling oil and lead down; How you'd frown Should a ladle-full fall on your crown! One is altogether indisposed to quarrel with the very thoroughgoing restoration that has given these great entrance-towers so striking an air of newness, for one instinctively feels that these towers must have looked so in times when the garrison was still kept up. While the place remained a fortress-residence it would have been simply suicidal not to maintain the entrance in the utmost state of repair.