"I wish to ask the name, sir, of the family to whom this stately ruin belongs?"
"It is my property, sir; my name is Glossin."
"Glossin—Glossin?" repeated Brown, as if the answer was 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, which is upon that scroll above the entablature with the arms?"
"I—I—I really do not exactly know," replied Glossin.
