"Oh!" exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet--"I'm tired of shore--I _want_ to see India again--I'm thinking of going into the _army_, curse it!" "The _army_, indeed!" said Westwood, laughing for the first time, "and you midshipman all over. No--no--that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive _me_! You're a true friend, Ned,--to stand by an old schoolmate so!" "No, Tom!" said I; "'tis yourself has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I _won't_ humbug _you_, at any rate--I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon." Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, "The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us by the head if you don't keep up the missionary." "Missionary!" repeated he; "you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under _missionary_ colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham!" "Jokes!" said I; "there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough." "Why," said Westwood, "_now_ I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions which I could no more answer than the cook's mate." "Clergyman be hanged!" said I, "you must steer clear of him, Tom--take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay." "The devil you did!" "Why there was nothing else for it, Westwood," I said, "when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn chap in the spectacles, is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the _Church_. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit--_taketoit_ my dear fellow, if that will do you good!" I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. "Indeed, Collins," said he gravely, "I _do_ think you're right. What do we sailors do, but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very _look_ of the sea? What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about 'seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?'" As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know _what_ went through me.