or, The Silver Skates 159

to engage his attention that he almost forgot his companions.
Part of the time he had been watching the ice-boats as they
flew over the great Haarlemmer Meer (or lake), the frozen
surface of which was now plainly visible from the canal.
These boats had very large sails, — much larger, in proportion,
than those of ordinary vessels, — and were set upon a triangular
frame, furnished with an iron “runner” at each corner; the
widest part of the triangle crossing the bow, and its point
stretching beyond the stern. ‘They had rudders for guiding,
and brakes for arresting their progress ; and were of all sizes and
kinds, from small, rough affairs, managed by a boy, to large
and beautiful ones filled with gay pleasure-parties, and manned
by competent sailors, who, smoking their stumpy pipes, reefed
and tacked and steered with great solemnity and precision.

Some of the boats were painted and gilded in gaudy style,
and flaunted gay pennons from their mastheads; others, white
"as snow, with every spotless sail rounded by the wind, looked
like swans borne onward by a resistless current. It seemed to
Ben, as, following his fancy, he watched one of these in the
distance, that he could almost hear its helpless, terrified cry ;
but he soon found that the sound arose from a nearer and less
romantic cause,— from an ice-boat, not fifty yards from him,
using its brakes to avoid a collision with a peat-sled.

It was a rare thing for these boats to be upon the canal; and
their appearance generally caused no little excitement among
skaters, especially among the timid: but to-day every ice-boat
in the country seemed afloat, or, rather, aslide ; and the canal
had its full share.

Ben, though delighted at the sight, was often startled at the
swift approach of the resistless, high-winged things, threatening
to dart in any and every possible direction. It required all his