Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant, with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little coast–guard, looking out for her _eau de vie_? Of course she saw fifty _Taprobanes_—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak, with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land, good night!” Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to the sweetest of young ladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope. That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious medicines—_medicina a non medendo_—the bounding ease and buoyant freedom of a ship bound southward. Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.