The fugitives’ voyage aboard the Matutina

The fugitives’ voyage aboard the Matutina turns escape into a physical departure from England, then places that new freedom under immediate pressure. The ship carries the fugitives away from the coast, but the child watching from land loses sight of them as their routes divide; offshore, a storm confronts the vessel before the meaning of escape can settle into security.

Departure and the course away from England

After the chief and the captain part, each absorbed in his own thoughts, the Matutina leaves the gulf. The vessel crosses the dangerous Shambles Shoal at the entrance to Portland roads, clearing a hazardous stretch before reaching the open sea. These early stages make the departure more than a change of place: the fugitives are moving beyond England’s coast and into a setting where their immediate direction is determined by wind, water, and the captain’s handling of the ship.

When the wind sets due north, its direction is favorable for driving the Matutina away from England. The captain decides to set all sail, and the vessel makes swift progress with the wind behind it. The voyage’s first mood is therefore one of release. The fugitives clap their hands and celebrate the sea, the wind, the sails, and the ship’s speed, welcoming the distance opening between them and the land. Their delight is not presented as a settled knowledge of what lies ahead: they are unmindful of the future, while the doctor seems not to attend to their excitement and remains absorbed in thought.

The coast falls away

The departure also separates the fugitives from the child who has remained on the distant cliff. Until the vessel disappears, the child keeps watching it. The account gives this look a place within the unfolding of events, then marks a sharp geographical division: once the child can no longer see the ship, the child goes north while the Matutina goes south. Their movement in opposite directions makes the voyage a separation as well as an escape. The fugitives gain distance from England, but the child’s position on the coast gives that departure a parallel, landbound consequence.

As the light fades, the child loses sight of the vessel. Those aboard, meanwhile, see the hostile land recede: Portland, Purbeck, Tineham, Kimmeridge, the Matravers, and the line of cliffs grow smaller, along with the coast’s lighthouses. England eventually disappears from view, leaving the fugitives surrounded by sea. This change gives the journey a clear threshold. The coast had been both the place they were fleeing and the last visible point of orientation; beyond it, their course leads into open water.

From exhilaration to storm

The Matutina’s distance from land does not bring calm. After England disappears, night closes around the vessel and snow begins to fall. A boreal storm strikes the ship, which rushes toward it rather than turning away. In the first shock, the crew does not shorten sail: no sail is clewed up, no jib lowered, and no reef taken in. The mast bends under the force, while the vessel remains exposed to the weather.

The account describes the Matutina continuing at speed in conditions that threaten its control. Its two mainsails do demanding work, and water repeatedly washes over the deck. The women have taken refuge in the cabin, while the men remain on deck. Although the ship is at the mercy of the cyclone, it keeps its head toward the rollers, with the wind broad on the bow, a course intended to reduce the danger of being caught broadside or pooped. The narration also makes the limits of that measure clear: a shift of wind that took the ship aback would render this partial precaution useless.

The Matutina nevertheless holds its course. It heels to an angle of about fifteen degrees, but its keel maintains its hold on the water, and the lantern at the prow casts light ahead. The voyage thus moves from an apparent advantage—the north wind carrying the fugitives away—to a test in which speed and forward motion cannot guarantee safety. The same full-sail flight that expressed their urgency now leaves the vessel confronting conditions it cannot command.

Freedom asserted, outcome unsettled

Against this danger, the chief stands at the stern, holds to the rigging, and waves his kerchief in the lantern light. He announces that the fugitives are free, and they echo the declaration as they seize the rigging and rise on deck. The gesture turns the ship’s departure into a collective claim: the fugitives read the receding land as release from the hostile place they have left.

The storm makes that claim forceful but not secure. The fugitives celebrate freedom at the moment their vessel is most exposed, and the contrast leaves their confidence in tension with the conditions around them. Their declaration establishes what the flight means to them; it does not resolve what the voyage will bring. In the episode, escape is therefore neither merely a successful departure nor a completed deliverance. It is a continuing passage, defined by separation from England and by the uncertain course of a ship at sea.