ven the captain allowed that it had been 'a stiffish gale;' but
subsequent tumults of the winds and waves, which seemed tremendous to
unsophisticated landsmen, were to him mere ocean frolics. And so, while
each day the air grew colder, they neared the banks of Newfoundland,
where everybody who could devise fishing-tackle tried to catch the
famous cod of those waters. Arthur was one of the successful captors,
having spent a laborious day in the main-chains for the purpose. At
eventide he was found teaching little Jay how to hold a line, and how to
manage when a bite came. Her mistakes and her delight amused him: both
lasted till a small panting fish was pulled up.

'There's a whiting for you, now,' said he, 'all of your own catching.'

Jay looked at it regretfully, as the poor little gills opened and shut
in vain efforts to breathe the smothering air, and the pretty silver
colouring deadened as its life went. 'I am very sorry,' she said,
folding her hands together; 'I think I ought not to have killed it only
to amuse myself.' And she walked away to where her sister was sitting.

'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