He had merely been defending his own from a dangerous intruder and so was wholly within his rights.
"Now that I've held you under my muzzle you're safe from me, old fellow," were Robert's unspoken words.
He felt that his dignity was restored and that, at the same time, his sense of right had been maintained.

Elated, he went back to the house and busied himself, arranging his possessions.

They were so numerous that he was rather crowded, but he was not willing to give up anything.
One becomes very jealous over his treasures when he knows the source of supplies may have been cut off forever.

So he rearranged them, trying to secure for himself better method and more room, and he also gave them a more minute examination.
In a small chest which he had not opened before he found, to his great delight, a number of books, all the plays of Shakespeare, several by Beaumont and Fletcher, others by Congreve and Marlowe, Monsieur Rollin's Ancient History, a copy of Telemachus, translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, Ovid, Horace, Virgil and other classics.

Most of the books looked as if they had been read and he thought they might have belonged to the captain, but there was no inscription in any of them, and, on the other hand, they might have been taken from a captured ship.
With plenty of leisure and a mind driven in upon itself, Robert now read a great deal, and, as little choice was left to him, he read books that he might have ignored otherwise.