CHAPTER II
The Population of Compton Poynsett


He wanted a wife his braw hoose to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fashous to seek.--Laird o' Cockpen

In the bright lamplight of the dining-table, the new population
first fully beheld one another, and understood one another's looks.

There was much family resemblance between the five brothers. All
were well-grown well-made men, strong and agile, the countenance
pleasing, rather square of mould, eyebrows straight and thick, nose
well cut and short, chin firm and resolute-looking, and the
complexion very dark in Raymond, Frank, and the absent Miles.
Frank's eyes were soft, brown, rather pensive, and absent in
expression; but Raymond's were much deeper and darker, and had a
steadfast gravity, that made him be viewed as formidable, especially
as he had lost all the youthful glow of colouring that mantled in
his brother's olive cheek; and he had a short, thick, curly brown
beard, while Frank had only attained to a black moustache, that
might almost have been drawn on his lip with charcoal.

Charlie was an exception--fair, blue-eyed, rosy, and with a soft
feminine contour of visage, which had often drawn on him reproaches
for not being really the daughter all his mother's friends desired
for her.