and there learnt that his sister, Lady Isabella Byron, had married, three years before, the Earl of Carlisle, and he was directed to their house—a fine old red brick mansion, which still stands in the neighbourhood of Soho Square. He immediately walked to this house and knocked at the door; but the footman refused to take in his name or believe in his pretended relationship to the family. In fact, there was not much in his appearance which denoted aristocratic connections. His dress was a strange medley of worn-out clothing, half French and half Spanish, and he wore a huge pair of boots, picked up in his travels, which were now covered with dirt. Altogether, Robinson Crusoe himself could scarcely have been a more unlikely person to present himself at the door of an English nobleman's mansion, or announce himself as the brother of my lady the Countess. The man was about to shut the door in his face, when the earnestness of the intruder's manner finally induced him to admit him. "I need not acquaint my readers," adds Byron, "with what surprise and joy my sister received me. She immediately furnished me with money sufficient to appear like the rest of my countrymen, till which time I could not be properly said to have finished all the extraordinary scenes which a series of unfortunate adventures had kept me in for the space of five years and upwards." In fact, although the wanderers included the captain of the lost man-of-war and the brother of an English nobleman, and although their story had been for several years known in various cities of South America, and also for some time in Brest, they were themselves the first to bring to the Admiralty tidings of their marvellous escape. Byron
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