A ship in one of London's older docks with their restrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for a happy evening.

Still, as the tide served at six in the morning, one could understand them coming on board the evening before.
Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to be quit of the shore.

We know he was an orphan from a very early age, without brothers or sisters--no near relations of any kind, I believe, except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father.

No affection stood in the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he thought that now all the worries were over, that there was nothing before him but duties, that he knew what he would have to do as soon as the dawn broke and for a long succession of days.

A most soothing certitude.