"Well, my boy, you said just now that you did not mean to give the voyage to idleness; what are you going to learn? You have already caught up a good deal of nautical knowledge during visits to the coast, but may not be quite qualified to manage a steamer."
"I did not mean that sort of thing," replied Robin. "I am not going to apprentice myself to Captain Gump. I intend to do something in the way of learning by heart. I might commit to memory the First Epistle of St. John."
"You would possess yourself of a treasure."
"One ready to be used on every occasion, when a book is not at hand," observed Robin. "I want to drink in the spirit of St. John, and if his works are in my memory and heart, they will intuitively come to mind when I am going to give way to some fit of temper; they may,—don't you think so?—act as a kind of restraint?"
"'Thy Word have I hid in any heart, that I sin not against Thee,'" said Harold. "Your design is good; I will try to learn the same portion of Scripture in Arabic."
"It would never seem the same as in the dear mother tongue," observed Robin; "but perhaps it is foolish to think so; the Epistle was, of course, not first written in English. Harold, there's another thing which I want to ask you. Don't you think that you, as a clergyman, could do something for the sailors and our fellow-passengers here?"
"That thought has been in my mind all day," replied Harold; "I have been waiting for an opportunity of speaking to Captain Gump on the subject."
"There he is," said Robin. "Does he not look like a bear standing on his hind legs, or a chess-castle wrapped in a shaggy brown coat? I'm afraid, from what people say, that you'll not find him an easy customer to deal with. He is not like one of the pleasant, gentlemanly men usually chosen to command passenger ships. He must be an adept in ill manners to have shown rudeness to Mrs. Evendale, as he did this morning."
The appearance of Captain Gump was certainly not prepossessing. In stature he was almost dwarfish; but he made up in breadth for want of height, being a remarkably powerful man. The captain's face was blackened by superabundant hair, which seemed to be always of three days' growth; no one could remember having seen him clean-shaven, even on a Sunday, and the captain's black bristles, like the porcupine's quills, had a "touch-me-who-dares" appearance about them.
When Harold walked up to the captain with a courteous "Good evening, sir," the commander of the "Alligator" only returned the greeting with a grunt. Captain Gump had taken a dislike to Harold from the minute that he saw the young clergyman step on deck, partly because Hartley was a missionary, partly because of his height, for Gump bore a grudge against any man who happened to be a foot taller than himself.