The sight roused me to the liveliest interest. For the cognisance belonged to one house and one house alone. It was Douglas of Cauldshaw who had carried the family badge with this strange difference. Mary of Scots, it was said, had given them the spear, for to the last they had stood by that melancholy lady.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“What? The ring? It was my father’s. An ugly thing.”
I looked at it again. “It has an odd crest. Did you ever inquire about it?”
He said No. He knew little heraldry, and didn’t want to pretend to what didn’t belong to him. Then he corrected himself. He thought that the thing was a family relic, right enough. His father had got the stone in turn from his mother, and had had it reset. He thought, but he wasn’t sure, that it had been a long time in his grandmother’s family.
“What was her name?” I asked eagerly.
The answer was disappointing. “Brown,” he said. “They had the Wooramanga place.”
I asked if they came from Scotland. “No,” he said. “They were Yorkshire, I think. But wait a bit. I think—yes—I have heard my father say something about the Browns being Scotch—Brouns, you know.”
This was a false scent and I tried again. But Linford had nothing to tell me. He had no family papers or jewels or pictures, nothing but the one ring. I could see that he was puzzled at my interest, and to my horror offered to pay the Heralds’ College to investigate matters. I made him promise to let the Heralds alone, and tried to get more about his grandmother. She had been a tall, thin old lady, as he remembered her, with a north-country accent. She had disliked Melbourne intensely. That was all he could tell; not a saying or a rhyme or a memory to link her with those who had borne the ring’s cognisance.
I heard, however, another startling thing that afternoon. Linford, blushing delightfully, confessed that he was in love. He had no chance, of course, wasn’t good enough, and all the rest of it. When I heard that the lady was Virginia Dasent I was inclined to agree with him. Miss Dasent was very high game for Linford to fly at—or for anybody.
VII
Language is too coarse a medium in which to give a true portrait of Miss Virginia. Airy diaphanous colours and the sharp fineness of marble are needed; and something more, something to recapture that grace, wild and birdlike and only half mortal, which for three seasons turned all our heads. She was an astounding success. Coming from nowhere, and as innocent as a child of ambition, she made every man her most hopeless and humble servant. I think her charm was her pure girlishness—neither childish nor womanly, you understand. She had the air of one who faces the world frankly but does not accept it. She was a changeling, a wanderer, a dainty solitary figure on the weary old roads of life. I remember thinking, when I first saw her, that she might have stood for a statue of incarnate Wonder.
I knew her a little, well enough to see the hopelessness of my friend’s case. She was an American—from one of the Carolinas, I believe; and Lady Amysfort took her about in London. I do not think that they were related. I hope my friends beyond the Atlantic will forgive me for saying that Miss Virginia was like no American I have ever met. Not that she had any of the sad homeless vulgarity of the denationalised. She was a fervent patriot, and had a delicious variety of the national humour. But I could not fit her in with her great continent. Indeed, I could not place her anywhere in any society. She belonged to some fanciful world of her own; but all the time she seemed to me to be looking for something—perhaps for her lost material heritage.
I was more interested, however, in Linford than in Miss Dasent. I could find out no more from him about his forbears, but I wondered if the Glen could tell me anything. Supposing I took him there, unprepared, of course, by any warning of mine, might not he feel the spell of it? If he did, I would be convinced of the Douglas blood; for I was certain that not otherwise would so prosaic a being feel so subtle a charm.
I persuaded him to take the Hardriding shootings; with an option to purchase, too, for Harry’s finances were now past praying for. The chance came two days before the Twelfth, when he and I were alone in the house. It was a mild, blue August day, with clear distances and a cool breeze, and as we rounded the Green Dod I thought that my Glen was nobly dressed for us. I had hoped for some cry of delight, but none came. Linford stalked through the bent, muttering something about black-game.
We came to the mound by the waterside, Maid Marjory’s Bower, and stretched ourselves on the scented turf. Then a curious thing happened to me. A light wind came up the stream, rippling the pools and sending a grey shiver over the grasses. Suddenly I became oppressed with a mortal fear. I must have lain limp and white, looking dumbly cut the opposite hill. I had no notion what I feared, but it was worse than my old boyish adventure, for, though I longed madly to flee, I knew I could not. The Green Glen was trying me, and if I failed I had lost its secret forever. I shut my teeth, and for a second or two hung at the limit of my endurance. Then it all passed. I found myself lying back on the mound, desperately sleepy and dripping with sweat, as if I had run twenty miles.
I mopped my brow and looked at Linford.
