310 MOTTOES 



was content with the innocent legend ' Loch Sloy,' the 

 place of muster for a driving rai^. 



For cynical frankness nothing can beat the crest and 

 motto of the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn — a hand hold- 

 ing a dagger distilling drops of blood, with the legend, 

 ' I make sure ' , (or ' siccar ' as it ought to be), for 

 these were the words with which Sir Roger prefaced 

 the coup de grdce he gave to the Red Comyn before 

 the altar of the Grey Friars of Dumfries. As a purely 

 militant motto, none is nobler than that handed down 

 from the same time by the Good Sir James of Douglas, 

 ' Jamais arrifere.' 



As head of the Macphersons — the great Clan Chattan 

 — Sir John Macpherson Grant still displays the warn- 

 ing, ' Touch not the Cat but [without] the Glove,' nor 

 used it to be wise to disregard it in dealing with this 

 turbulent sept. 



The county Palatine of Lancaster lies too near the 

 Scottish Marches for its knights of yore to aifect pacific 

 intentions ; wherefore the de Traffords, whose forebears 

 Norman William found established there, explain the 

 secret of their permanence by the bold phrase, ' Gripe 

 griffin ; hold fast ! ' their arms being a red griffin on a 

 white field. The Stanleys, too, have been settled long 

 enough in the north to warrant their motto, 'Sans 

 changer,' albeit it did not restrain two Earls of Derby 

 from changing political sides during last century — the 

 14th earl from a Whig to a Tory, and the 15th earl 

 from a Disraelian Conservative to a Gladstonian 

 Radical. A like fond aspiration for stability in an 

 unstable world is conveyed in ' Bydand,' the motto of 



