The current of their particular stream may long run smooth, but sooner or later the rugged channel and the precipice will come.

Some streams run quietly for many a league, and only at the last are troubled.

Others burst from their very birth on rocks of difficulty, and rush, throughout their course, in tortuous, broken channels.
So was it with the actors in our story.

Our hero's course was smooth.
Having fallen in love with his friend Tom Singleton's profession, he studied medicine and surgery, became an M.D., and returned to practise in Grayton, which was a flourishing sea-port, and, during the course of Fred's career, extended considerably.

Fred also fell in love with a pretty young girl in a neighbouring town, and married her.