"It was built, I believe, long ago, by a family called MacDingawaie," answered Glossin; suppressing for obvious reasons the more familiar sound of Bertram, which might have awakened the recollections which he was anxious to lull to rest, and slurring with an evasive answer the question concerning the endurance of his own possession.
"And how do you read the half-defaced motto, sir," said Bertram, "which is upon that scroll above the entablature with the arms?"
"I--I--I really do not exactly know," replied Glossin.
"I should be apt to make it out, 'Our Right makes our Might.' "
"I believe it is something of that kind," said Glossin.
"May I ask, sir," said the stranger, "if it is your family motto?"
"N-n-no--no--not ours. That is, I believe, the motto of the former people--mine is--mine is--in fact I have had some correspondence with Mr. Cumming of the Lyon Office in Edinburgh about mine. He writes me the Glossins anciently bore for a motto, 'He who takes it, makes it.' "
"If there be any uncertainty, sir, and the case were mine," said Bertram, "I would assume the old motto, which seems to me the better of the two."
