'I thank you, sir,' said Bertram. 'They call this the Old Place, I am
informed?'
'Yes, sir; in distinction to the New Place, my house there below.'
Glossin, it must be remarked, was, during the following dialogue, on
the one hand eager to learn what local recollections young Bertram had
retained of the scenes of his infancy, and on the other compelled to be
extremely cautious in his replies, lest he should awaken or assist, by
some name, phrase, or anecdote, the slumbering train of association. He
suffered, indeed, during the whole scene the agonies which he so richly
deserved; yet his pride and interest, like the fortitude of a North
American Indian, manned him to sustain the tortures inflicted at once
by the contending stings of a guilty conscience, of hatred, of fear,
and of suspicion.
'I wish to ask the name, sir,' said Bertram, 'of the family to whom
this stately ruin belongs.'
'It is my property, sir; my name is Glossin.'
'Glossin--Glossin?' repeated Bertram, as if the answer were somewhat
different from what he expected. 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Glossin; I am
apt to be very absent. May I ask if the castle has been long in your
family?'
'It was built, I believe, long ago by a family called Mac-Dingawaie,'
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.'
Glossin, whose tongue by this time clove to the roof of his mouth, only
answered by a nod.
'It is odd enough,' said Bertram, fixing his eye upon the arms and
gateway, and partly addressing Glossin, partly as it were thinking
aloud--'it is odd the tricks which our memory plays us. The remnants of
an old prophecy, or song, or rhyme of some kind or other, return to my
recollection on hearing that motto; stay--it is a strange jingle of
sounds:--
The dark shall be light,
And the wrong made right,
When Bertram's right and Bertram's might
Shall meet on---
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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