"There is," says one of the liveliest of our English writers, "a great feeling of freedom in being the arbiter of one's actions, to go where you will and when you will. The first burst of life is, indeed, a glorious thing; youth, health, hope, and confidence, have each a force and vigour they lose in after years. Life is then, a splendid river, and we are swimming with the stream.—no adverse waves to weary, no billows to buffet with us, as we hold on our way rejoicing."
Morley had buffeted with many adverse waves, but it was the ardour and confidence of this "first burst of life" and spring of youth that enabled him to surmount them; and, inspired by it, he looked hopefully and manfully forward to the vague and uncertain future.
Being an intelligent, well-educated, and well-read man, with a strong sense of probity and trust in religion, Morrison, though several years his senior, formed an admirable companion and occasional mentor to Morley. He was a man who had undergone many vicissitudes in life; but believing rigidly that all things were ordered for our ultimate good, and nothing evil occurred which might not have been worse, he passed through the world with a tolerable air of philosophy, and he contrived somehow to infuse into Morley's more ardent nature the quiet of content for the present time, with a spirit of perseverance and hope for that to come.
So Morrison talked away about Ethel Basset, as if he had known her all his life. He pointed out a variety of ways and means for reaching the Isle of France. He calculated the distance to a nicety; about 2,400 miles from Rio to the Cape; about 4,800 miles from thence to Tasmania; and about 2,400 more from thence to the Isle of France. In short, making allowance for variation, leeway, head-winds, and so forth, poor Morley found that he must traverse at least 9,600 miles before he saw the land that was Ethel's new home!
At this calculation he could not repress a sigh and an emotion of repining, notwithstanding all the patience and philosophy with which his Scottish friend sought to inspire him.
But the ship flew fast on her watery path. She was spanking along at the rate of nine knots an hour over a smooth sea with a glorious sky overhead—a sky wherein he saw, for the first time, the Hole, or, as sailors term it, "the Coal-sack," a deep and dark blue starless space in the southern quarter of the heavens, an appearance only to be found in those latitudes where, in its far immensity of lightless azure, that portion of the sky becomes black, as if it had been pierced by a hole.
After they had been three days out from Rio, early in the morning, Morley was roused from sleep, first by the rattling and hauling aft of the starboard chain, which the watch on deck were unbending for stowage in the cable-tier, and second by a conversation at the companion hatch, where he heard the voices of Bartelot and Gawthrop, who both summoned Morrison with something of excitement in their tone, so he, too, hurried on deck.
The wind, which had been due west all night, enabling the Princess to run her course with both sheets aft, had veered round to the northward: so she was now trimmed with her starboard tacks on board, and had all her fore-and-aft canvas set.
"What is the matter?" asked Morley.
"Look astern," replied Bartelot.