The Bread Frozen.—Skating.—Fish Frozen in Ice.—Birds Frozen to the Ice.—Ice-Ships.

It was dark when they sailed up the dyke leading to the broad, and the wind had fallen, so that their progress was slow. As they moved out of the dyke, where there was a gentle current, into the open broad, there was a sound of crashing and splintering at their bows, and the way of the yacht was stopped. Jimmy and Dick rushed out of the cabin, where they had been preparing supper, and said to Frank, who was at the helm,—

"What is the matter?"

"Why the broad is frozen over, and we can't get any further."

"Can't we break a passage through?" said Dick.

"We might, but it would be a pity to spoil so much ice for skating. Let us stay here until the morning, and then we can walk across for our skates. The yacht will be as safe here as by the boat-house."

They were already sufficiently wedged in by the ice to be able to dispense with the lowering of their anchor, and after supper—(which by the way consisted of, first broiled bacon, next tinned salmon, then some gooseberry-jam, followed by cheese, and finally a tin of American preserved strawberries, which they had bought at Yarmouth, the whole washed down by coffee and beer)—they turned in for a snooze. The silence of the night was broken by continual sharp, tinkling noises. It was some little time before they discovered that these arose from the ice crystals as they formed along the surface of the water, shooting out in long needles and crossing each other, until every inch of the water was covered.

In the morning the ice was strong enough to bear their weight, although it bent in long waves beneath them as they hurried over it.

The frost continued. The ice was smooth, and black, and hard, and perfectly free from snow. Early and late, the boys sped lightly over it on their skates, enjoying to the full this most invigorating and healthy exercise.

Frank and Jimmy practised threes and eights and the spread-eagle, and the other now old-fashioned figures, with great assiduity; and Dick, having soon mastered the inside edge, tumbled about most indefatigably in his efforts to master the outside edge.

The frost continued with unabated severity, and soon the ice was two feet thick, and the shallower portions of the broad were frozen to the bottom. One day Dick was skating at a good pace before the wind, when something beneath his feet in the transparent ice attracted his attention, and in his haste to stop he came down very heavily. He shouted to Frank and Jimmy to come up, and when they did so, he pointed to the ice at his feet. Midway in the water, where it was about two feet deep, was a shoal of a dozen perch, most of them good sized ones, frozen into the ice in various attitudes, betokening their last struggle to escape. The reason of their being so caught was explained by the fact that they were in a slight depression surrounded by shallower and weedy water, which had frozen so as to shut them in, and give them no means of escape before the water in which they swam became solid.

"That fellow is fully two pounds weight. I wonder if they are dead," said Frank.

"Of course they must be," answered Jimmy; "they cannot be frozen stiff like that and live."

"I am not so sure about that," observed Dick; "caterpillars have been known to be frozen quite stiff, and to all appearance lifeless, yet they revive when they are warmed."

"Well," said Frank, "I tell you what we will do. We will dig them out, and put them into water in the house, and give them a chance."

They did so, and five of the perch, including the biggest and the smallest, came to life, and were subsequently restored to the broad.

One day a rapid thaw set in, and the ice was covered with a thin layer of water. During the night, however, the wind suddenly changed, and this layer of water froze so quickly, that it held fast by the feet many water-fowl which had been resting on the ice.

When the boys went down to the ice in the morning, they saw here and there a dead or dying water-hen or coot thus made captive, and surrounded by a group of the hooded crows, those grey-backed crows which in the winter-time are so common in Norfolk, and the rapacious birds were attacking and eating the poor held-fast water-fowl.

The crowning achievement of the winter was this: They broke the Swan free, and got her on to the ice; then they supported her on some runners, like large skate irons, made by the village blacksmith, and put on ordinary skates on each rudder to get steerage power, and so constructed with great ease an ice-ship after the fashion of those used in some parts of Canada. With this they sped over the ice at a far quicker rate than they had ever sailed upon the water, and they could steer her tolerably close to the wind. This amusement superseded the skating until the ice melted away, and the Swan once more floated on the water and sailed in her legitimate manner.