"And how grateful to God!" The Captain said those words in tones that trembled--speaking to himself.
Randal was conscious of feeling a momentary embarrassment. The character of his visitor had presented itself in a new light.
Captain Bennydeck looked at him--understood him--and returned 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?"