Point, at the northern extremity of Old Grimsey Harbour. Mr. Lovyes
was sitting over his walnuts in the cheerless solitude of his
dining-room--a frail old gentleman, older than his years, which I took
to be sixty or thereabouts, and with the air of a man in a decline.
I unfolded my business forthwith, but I had not got far before he
interrupted me.

"There is a mistake," he said. "It is doubtless my brother Robert you
are in search of. I am John Lovyes, and was, it is true, captured
with my brother in Africa, but I escaped six years before he did, and
traded no more in those parts. We fled together from the negroes, but
we were pursued. My brother was pierced by an arrow, and I left him,
believing him to be dead."

I had, indeed, heard something of a brother, though I little expected
to find him in Tresco too. He pressed upon me the hospitality of his
house, but my business was with Mr. Robert, and I asked him to direct
me on my path, which he did with some hesitation and reluctance. I had
once more to pass through Dolphin Town, and an impulse prompted me to
take another look at the shuttered house. I found that the basket of
food had been removed, and an empty bucket stood in its place. But
there was still no light visible, and I went on to the dwelling of
Mr. Robert Lovyes. When I came to it, I comprehended his brother's
hesitation. It was a rough, mean little cottage standing on the edge
of the bracken close to the sea--a dwelling fit for the poorest
fisherman, but for no one above that station, and a large open boat
was drawn up on the hard beside it as though the tenant fished for
his bread. I knocked at the door, and a man with a candle in his hand
opened it.