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.