Jarring gazed after her with an expression of owlish and unutterable surprise on his swarthy countenance. Then he smiled faintly at the unexpected and appalling--not to say curious--fate that awaited him; but reflecting that, although lugubrious and long, Mitford was deep-chested, broad-shouldered, and wiry, he became grave again, shook his head, and had the sense to make up his mind never again to arouse the slumbering spirit of Peggy Mitford. It was a wild scene that presented itself to the eyes of the passengers in the _Lapwing_ when the hatches were at last taken off, and they were permitted once more to go on deck. Grey was the prevailing colour. The great seas, which seemed unable to recover from the wild turmoil into which they had been lashed, were of a cold greenish grey, flecked and tipped with white. The sky was steely grey with clouds that verged on black; and both were so mingled together that it seemed as if the little vessel were imbedded in the very heart of a drizzling, heaving, hissing ocean. The coxswain's wife stood leaning on her stalwart husband's arm, by the foremast, gazing over the side. "It do seem more dreary than I expected," she said. "I wouldn't be a sailor, Bob, much as I've bin used to the sea, an' like it." "Ah, Nell, that's 'cause you've only bin used to the _sea-shore_. You haven't bin long enough on blue water, lass, to know that folks' opinions change a good deal wi' their feelin's. Wait till we git to the neighbour'ood o' the line, wi' smooth water an' blue skies an' sunshine, sharks, and flyin' fish. You'll have a different opinion then about the sea." "Right you are, Bob," said Joe Slagg, coming up at that moment. "Most people change their opinions arter gittin' to the line, specially when it comes blazin' hot, fit to bile the sea an' stew the ship, an' a dead calm gits a hold of 'e an' keeps ye swelterin' in the doldrums for a week or two." "But it wasn't that way we was lookin' at it, Joe," returned Nellie, with a laugh. "Bob was explainin' to me how pleasant a change it would be after the cold grey sea an' sky we're havin' just now." "Well, it may be so; but whatever way ye may look at it, you'll change yer mind, more or less, when you cross the line. By the way, that minds me that some of us in the steerage are invited to cross the line to-night--the line that separates us from the cabin--to attend a lectur' there--an' you'll niver guess the subjec', Bob." "I know that, Joe. I never made a right guess in my life, that I knows on. Heave ahead, what is it?" "A lectur' on the `Lifeboat,' no less! But it aint our lifeboat sarvice: it's the American one, cause it's to be given by that fine young fellow, Dr Hayward, who looks as if suthin' had damaged his constitootion somehow. I'm told he's a Yankee, though he looks uncommon like an Englishman." "He's tall an' 'andsome enough, anyhow," remarked Massey.