to the subject of his
travels.

"Do you remember your holiday-time when you were a boy, and when you had
to go back to school?" he asked with a smile. "My mind is in much the
same state at leaving Scotland, and going back to my work in London. I
hardly know which I admire most--your beautiful country or the
people who inhabit it. I have had some pleasant talk with your poorer
neighbors; the one improvement I could wish for among them is a keener
sense of their religious duties."

This was an objection new in Randal's experience of travelers in
general.

"Our Highlanders have noble qualities," he said. "If you knew them as
well as I do, you would find a true sense of religion among them; not
presenting itself, however, to strangers as strongly--I had almost
said as aggressively--as the devotional feeling of the Lowland Scotch.
Different races, different temperaments."

"And all," the Captain added, gravely and gently, "with souls to be
saved. If I sent to these poor people some copies of the New Testament,
translated into their own language, would my gift be accepted?"

Strongly interested by this time, in studying Captain Bennydeck's
character on the side of it which was new to him, Randal owned that he
observed with surprise the interest which his friend felt in perfect
strangers. The Captain seemed to wonder why this impression should have
been produced by what he had just said.

"I only try," he answered, "to do what good I can, wherever I go."

"Your life must be a happy one," Randal said.

Captain Bennydeck's head drooped. The shadows that attend on the gloom
of melancholy remembrance showed their darkening presence on his face.
Briefly, almost sternly, he set Randal right.

"No, sir."

"Forgive me," the younger man pleaded, "if I have spoken thoughtlessly."

"You have mistaken me," the Captain explained; "and it is my fault.
My life is an atonement for the sins of my youth. I have reached my
fortieth year--and that one purpose is before me for the rest of my
days. Sufferings and dangers which but few men undergo awakened my
conscience. My last exercise of the duties of my profession associated
me with an expedition to the Polar Seas. Our ship was crushed in the
ice. Our march to the nearest regions inhabited by humanity was a
hopeless struggle of starving men, rotten with scurvy, against the
merciless forces of Nature. One by one my comrades dropped and died. Out
of twenty men there were three left w