He spoke and bowed his head again. He had forgotten, in his emotion, that to this child his retirement figured as a voluntary exile. But Brion paid no heed, nor seemed to notice what he had said. His eyes still shone. ‘Uncle,’ he said; ‘now it is confessed and done with, I ask one only thing of thee--never to let word be uttered between us on this subject again. From this moment I would begin a new life--my own. I will make myself, who should be the best architect of mine own honour. Will you?’ And the compact was made; and from that hour kept unbroken between them. CHAPTER XVII. CERTAIN VISITORS Somewhere in the late summer of ’77 there came to the Moated Grange early one morning two visitors, of whom one was destined to exert a considerable influence on Brion’s fortunes. These were Sir Richard Grenville, and a young connexion of his named Walter Raleigh, both West Border gentlemen of good family, and one of them, the elder, holding some sort of official position as County Sheriff. This latter was a strong, compact, saturnine man of thirty-seven, rough bearded and voiced, and with a manner which halted, if at all, on the near side of offence; in all of which characteristics he afforded as complete a contrast as was possible with his companion, whose extreme graces of courtesy and geniality, together with a handsome gallant presence, made only more emphatic the coarse grain of the other. This Mr Raleigh was but lately home, it seemed, from fighting in the Low Countries, where he had played the part of a good soldier against the King of Spain, and earned for himself a reputation which he was quite prepared to stake against the most extravagant throws of Fortune. He was a tallish young man of twenty-five, very shapely in the limbs, with a white hand and a comely intellectual face, rather overhigh in the forehead, but with noble brown eyes, which, at a tale of arms and chivalry, would glow like living fires. His human weakness--if weakness it were to treat so fine a body delicately--lay in a certain over-gallantry of attire. He loved fine clothes, and knew how to wear them to effect. Now, though he was by the road, and only country folk to appraise him, he was dressed as though to attend a Queen’s junketting--from embroidered bonnet to long Flemish boots of soft leather a star of fashion. His little pointed beard was scented, as were his cheveril gloves; he had jewels in his ears; his gilt spurs ‘rang the morris-dance.’ And yet to judge him effeminate would have been to invite disaster. There is a form of foppishness about which it does not do to assume that it lacks the courage of its opinions; and here was a wrist as strong and supple as the wit behind it was virile.