Gradually Penzance had reached a clear understanding of all the building of the young life, of its rankling humiliation, and the qualities of mind and body which made for rebellion.It sometimes thrilled him to see in the big frame and powerful muscles, in the strong nature and unconquerable spirit, a revival of what had burned and stirred through lives lived in a dim, almost mythical, past.There were legends of men with big bodies, fierce faces, and red hair, who had done big deeds, and conquered in dark and barbarous days, even Fate's self, as it had seemed.None could overthrow them, none could stand before their determination to attain that which they chose to claim.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.
Together the two rummaged forgotten shelves and chests, and found forgotten things.That which had drawn the boy from the first always drew and absorbed him--the annals of his own people.Many a long winter evening the pair turned over the pages of volumes and of parchment, and followed with eager interest and curiosity the records of wild lives--stories of warriors and abbots and bards, of feudal lords at ruthless war with each other, of besiegings and battles and captives and torments.Legends there were of small kingdoms torn asunder, of the slaughter of their kings, the mad fightings of their barons, and the faith or unfaith of their serfs.Here and there the eternal power revealed itself in some story of lawful or unlawful love--for dame or damsel, royal lady, abbess, or high-born nun--ending in the welding of two lives or in rapine, violence, and death.There were annals of early England, and of marauders, monks, and Danes.And, through all these, some thing, some man or woman, place, or strife linked by some tie with Mount Dunstan blood.In past generations, it seemed plain, there had been certain of the line who had had pride in these records, and had sought and collected them; then had been born others who had not cared.Sometimes the relations were inadequate, sometimes they wore an unauthentic air, but most of them seemed, even after the passing of centuries, human documents, and together built a marvellous great drama of life and power, wickedness and passion and daring deeds.
When the shameful scandal burst forth young Saltyre was seen by neither his father nor his brother.Neither of them had any desire to see him; in fact, each detested the idea of confronting by any chance his hot, intolerant eyes."The Brat," his father had called him in his childhood, "The Lout,"when he had grown big-limbed and clumsy.Both he and Tenham were sick enough, without being called upon to contemplate "The Lout," whose opinion, in any case, they preferred not to hear.
Saltyre, during the hideous days, shut himself up in the library.He did not leave the house, even for exercise, until after the pair had fled.His exercise he took in walking up and down from one end of the long room to another.Devils were let loose in him.When Penzance came to him, he saw their fury in his eyes, and heard it in the savagery of his laugh.
He kicked an ancient volume out of his way as he strode to and fro.
"There has been plenty of the blood of the beast in us in bygone times," he said, "but it was not like this.
Savagery in savage days had its excuse.This is the beast sunk into the gibbering, degenerate ape."Penzance came and spent hours of each day with him.
Part of his rage was the rage of a man, but he was a boy still, and the boyishness of his bitterly hurt youth was a thing to move to pity.With young blood, and young pride, and young expectancy rising within him, he was at an hour when he should have felt himself standing upon the threshold of the world, gazing out at the splendid joys and promises and powerful deeds of it--waiting only the fit moment to step forth and win his place.
"But we are done for," he shouted once."We are done for.And I am as much done for as they are.Decent people won't touch us.That is where the last Mount Dunstan stands." And Penzance heard in his voice an absolute break.He stopped and marched to the window at the end of the long room, and stood in dead stillness, staring out at the down-sweeping lines of heavy rain.
The older man thought many things, as he looked at his big back and body.He stood with his legs astride, and Penzance noted that his right hand was clenched on his hip, as a man's might be as he clenched the hilt of his sword --his one mate who might avenge him even when, standing at bay, he knew that the end had come, and he must fall.