six in the morning
Captains and their wives do not , as a rule , join a moment sooner than is necessary . They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends and relations . 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 .