The Knight - Chapter 2 Young Powell Sees and Hears

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. He enjoyed it in the
dark, stretched out in his bunk with his new blankets pulled over him.
Some clock ashore beyond the dock-gates struck two. And then he heard
nothing more, because he went off into a light sleep from which he woke
up with a start. He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardly worth
while. He jumped up and went on deck.

The morning was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a sheet
of darkling glass crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses, of
hulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and there on
the distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with clothes-bags and
wooden chests at their feet. Others were coming down the lane between
tall, blind walls, surrounding a hand-cart loaded with more bags and
boxes. It was the crew of the Ferndale. They began to come on board.
He scanned their faces as they passed forward filling the roomy deck with
the shuffle of their footsteps and the murmur of voices, like the
awakening to life of a world about to be launched into space.