or, The Silver Skates 213

XXVI
THE PALACE AND THE WOOD

S the boys skated onward, they saw a number of fine
country-seats, all decorated and surrounded according
to the Dutchest of Dutch taste, but impressive to look upon,
with their great formal houses, elaborate gardens, square
hedges and wide ditches, — some crossed by a bridge, having
a gate in the middle to be carefully locked at night. These
ditches, everywhere traversing the landscape, had long ago
lost their summer film, and now shone under the sunlight like
trailing ribbons of glass.

The boys travelled bravely, all the ale performing the
surprising feat. of producing gingerbread from their pockets,
and causing it to vanish instantly.

Twelve miles were passed. A few more strokes would
take them to the Hague, when Van Mounen proposed that
they should vary their course by walking into the city through
the Bosch.

“‘ Apreed!” cried one and all; and their skates were off
in a twinkling.

The Bosch is a grand park, or wood, nearly two miles long,
containing the celebrated House in the Wood, — Huss in’t
Bosch, — sometimes used as a royal residence.

This building, though ‘plain outside for a palace, is elegantly
furnished within, and finely frescoed; that is, the walls and