They found his house at the end of a row of cottages, each painted white, each with the usual air of belonging to land and sea at the same time, as revealed by the contents of their gardens –an upturned rowing boat, perhaps; a pile of long-disused fishing creels, with their tangles of knotted rope; a rusty plough; a small kennel, deserted, as if to echo the forced emigration that once stripped this land of so many of its people.