, and it wore the saddest smile a man could see.

"Mr. Grudge and I walked for a while in silence.

"'And what sort of a name has Mr. John Lovyes in these parts?' he
asked.

"'An honest sort,' said I emphatically--'the name of a man who loves
his wife.'

"'Or her money,' he sneered. 'Bah! a surly ill-conditioned dog, I'll
warrant, the curmudgeon!"

"'You are marvellously recovered of your cold,' said I.

"He stopped, and looked across the Sound. Then he said in a soft,
musing voice: 'I once knew just such another clever boy. He was so
clever that men beat him with sticks and put on great sea-boots to
kick him with, so that he lived a miserable life, and was subsequently
hanged in great agony at Tyburn.'

"Mr. Grudge, as he styled himself, stayed with us for a week, during
which time he sailed much with me about these islands; and I made a
discovery. Though he knew these islands so well, he had never visited
them before, and his knowledge was all hearsay. I did not mention my
discovery to him, lest I should meet with another rebuff. But I was
none the less sure of its truth, for he mistook Hanjague for Nornor,
and Priglis Bay for Beady Pool, and made a number of suchlike
mistakes. After a week he hired the cottage in which he now lives,
bought his boat, leased from the steward the patch of ground in
Dolphin Town, and set about building his house. He undertook the work,
I am sure, for pure employment and distraction. He picked up the
granite stones, fitted them together, panelled them, made the floors
from the deck of a brigantine which came ashore on Annet, pegged down
the thatch roof--in a word, he built the house from first to last with
his own hands and he took fifteen months over the business, during
which time he did not exchange a single word with Mrs. Lovyes, nor
anything more than a short 'Good-day' with Mr. John. He worked,
however, with no great regularity. For while now he laboured in a
feverish haste, now he would sit a whole day idle on the headlands;
or, again, he would of a sudden throw down his tools as though the
work overtaxed him, and, leaping into his boat, set all sail and
run with the wind. All that night you might see him sailing in the
moonlight, and he would come home in the flush of the dawn.

"After he had built the house, he furnished it, crossing for that
purpose backwards and forwards between Tresco and St. Mary's. I
remember that one day he brought back with him a large chest, and