Students of heredity knew that there were curious
instances of revival of type. There had been a certain Red Godwyn who
had ruled his piece of England before the Conqueror came, and who had
defied the interloper with such splendid arrogance and superhuman lack
of fear that he had won in the end, strangely enough, the admiration
and friendship of the royal savage himself, who saw, in his, a kindred
savagery, a power to be well ranged, through love, if not through fear,
upon his own side. This Godwyn had a deep attraction for his descendant,
who knew the whole story of his fierce life--as told in one yellow
manuscript and another--by heart. Why might not one fancy--Penzance was
drawn by the imagining--this strong thing reborn, even as the offspring
of a poorer effete type. Red Godwyn springing into being again, had been
stronger than all else, and had swept weakness before him as he had done
in other and far-off days.
In the old library it fell out in time that Penzance and the boy spent
the greater part of their days. The man was a bookworm and a scholar,
young Saltyre had a passion for knowledge. Among the old books and
manuscripts he gained a singular education. Without a guide he could not
have gathered and assimilated all he did gather and assimilate.
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