Then there came to me, at first like the far ring of a voice scarcely
heard through southern winds, the faint echo of a legend told me ere my
mother died--perhaps told me by her in those drifting hours of a
childhood nigh forgotten. Yet I seemed to see white, sun-drenched sands
and the long, blue swell of a summer sea, and I heard winds in the
palms, and a song--truly it was my mother's; I knew it now--and, of a
sudden, the words came borne on a whisper of ancient melody:

"This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms,
Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!"

Memory was stirring at last, and the gray legend grew from the past, how
a maid, Helen of Ormond, for love of her cousin, held prisoner in his
own house at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, sheared off her hair, clothed her limbs
in steel, and rode away to seek him; and how she came to the house at
Ashby and rode straight into the gateway, forcing her horse to the great
hall where her lover lay, and flung him, all in chains, across her
saddle-bow, riding like a demon to freedom through the Desmonds, his
enemies. Ah! now my throat was aching with the memory of the song, and
of that strange line I never understood--"Wearing the ghost-ring!"--and,
of themselves, the words grew and died, formed on my silent lips:

"This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms,
Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!

"Though for all time the lords of Ormond be
Butlers to Majesty,
Yet shall new honors fall upon her
Who, armored, rode for love to Ashby Farms;
Let this her title be: A Maid-at-Arms!