His chamber window showed him the glitter of a soaking world spread under grey of dawn. His little room was sparsely furnished, and the whitewashed walls were naked. He dressed, prayed, then turned to a wooden box and unpacked his few possessions. He stowed his clothes in a yellow chest-of-drawers with white china handles; his desk he put in the window, on a deep sill, the breadth of the wall. His boots and a pair of felt slippers he placed in a row. Some pictures remained. One represented his father and mother, both six years dead. The photograph was smeared with yellow, but the stain had missed the faces. An old, dogged man, in his Sunday black, sat in a chair and stared stolidly at the beholder; beside him stood a thin, tall woman of anxious eyes and gentle mouth. The face of the man explained the expression of his wife. This picture Daniel hung up on a nail; and beside it he placed another--the portrait of his only sister. There had been but two of them. His sister resembled her mother, and was married to a small tradesman at Plymouth. Her health caused Daniel uneasiness, for it was indifferent. Lastly, from the bottom of his box, he took an illuminated text, and set it over the head of his bed. His father had given it to him. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." Daniel often reflected that at least he might claim the beginning of wisdom, for greatly he feared. Outwardly Brendon was well made, and handsome on a mighty scale. If he ever gloried it was in his strength. He stood four inches over six feet, yet, until another was placed beside him, did not appear very tall, by reason of his just proportions. He was a brown man with small, triangular whiskers and a moustache that he cut straight across his lip, like a tooth-brush. The cropped hair on his face spoilt it, for the features were finely moulded, and, in repose, revealed something of the large, soulless, physical beauty of a Greek statue of youth. His mind, after the manner of huge men, moved slowly. His eyes were of the character of a dog's: large, brown, innocent, and trustful, yet capable of flashing into passionate wrath or smouldering with emotion. A noise, that Daniel made in hammering up his text, brought somebody to the door. It was the man who had welcomed him overnight, and he entered the newcomer's private chamber without ceremony. "Hold on, my son!" he said. "You'll wake master, then us shall all have a very unrestful day. Mr. Woodrow be a poor sleeper, like his faither afore him, and mustn't be roused till half after seven. He bides in the room below this, so I hope as you'll always go about so gentle of a morning as your gert bulk will let 'e." "So I will then," said Daniel. "'Tis lucky I've been moving wi'out my boots. I tread that heavy, Mr. Prout." Old John Prout looked with admiration and some envy at the young man.