'What a strange child!' thought Arthur, as he watched the little figure crossing the deck. But he wound up the tackle, and angled no more for that evening.
The calm was next day deepened by a fog; a dense haze settled on the sea, seeming by sheer weight to still its restless motion. Now was the skipper much more perturbed than during the rough weather: wrapt in a mighty pea-coat, he kept a perpetual look-out in person, chewing the tobacco meanwhile as if he bore it an animosity. Frequent gatherings of drift-ice passed, and at times ground together with a disagreeably strong sound. An intense chill pervaded the atmosphere,—a cold unlike what Robert or Arthur had ever felt in the frosts of Ireland, it was so much more keen and penetrating.
'The captain says it is from icebergs,' said the latter, drawing up the collar of his greatcoat about his ears, as they walked the deck. 'I wish we saw one—at a safe distance, of course. But this fog is so blinding'—
Even as he spoke, a vast whitish berg loomed abeam, immensely higher than the topmasts, in towers and spires snow-crested. What great precipices of grey glistening ice, as it passed by, a mighty half-distinguishable mass! what black rifts of destructive depth! The ship surged backward before the great refluent wave of its movement. A sensation of awe struck the bravest beholder, as slowly and majestically the huge berg glided astern, and its grim features were obliterated by the heavy haze.
Both drew a relieved breath when the grand apparition had passed. 'I wish Miss Armytage had seen it,' said Arthur.
'Why?' rejoined Robert, though the same thought was just in his own mind.
'Oh, because it was so magnificent, and I am sure she would admire it. I could almost make a poem about it myself. Don't you know the feeling, as if the sight were too large, too imposing for your mind somehow? And the danger only intensifies that.'
'Still, I wish we were out of their reach. The skipper's temper will be unbearable till then.'
It improved considerably when the fog rose off the sea, a day or two subsequently, and a head-wind sprang up, carrying them towards the Gulf. One morning, a low grey stripe of cloud on the horizon was shown to the passengers as part of Newfoundland. Long did Robert Wynn gaze at that dim outline, possessed by all the strange feelings which belong to the first sight of the new world, especially when it is to be a future home. No shame to his manhood if some few tears for the dear old home dimmed his eyes as he looked. But soon that shadow of land disappeared, and, passing Cape Race at a long distance, they entered the great estuary of the St. Lawrence, which mighty inlet, if it had place in our little Europe, would be fitly termed the Sea of Labrador; but where all the features of nature are colossal, it ranks only as a gulf.
One morning, when little Jay had gone on deck for an ante-breakfast run, she came back in a state of high delight to the cabin. 'Oh, Edith, such beautiful birds! such lovely little birds! and the sailors say they're from the land, though we cannot see it anywhere. How tired they must be after such a long fly, all the way from beyond the edge of the sea! Do come and look at them, dear Edith—do come!'