Where England Sets her Feet by Bernard Capes

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.