CHAPTER XXXVII.
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 thewind had fallen, so that their progress was slow. As they moved out ofthe dyke, where there was a gentle current, into the open broad, therewas a sound of crashing and splintering at their bows, and the way ofthe yacht was stopped. Jimmy and Dick rushed out of the cabin, wherethey had been preparing supper, and said to Frank, who was at thehelm,--
"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. Letus stay here until the morning, and then we can walk across for ourskates. The yacht will be as safe here as by the boat-house."
They were already sufficiently wedged in by the ice to be able todispense with the lowering of their anchor, and after supper--(which bythe way consisted of, first broiled bacon, next tinned salmon, then somegooseberry-jam, followed by cheese, and finally a tin of Americanpreserved strawberries, which they had bought at Yarmouth, the wholewashed down by coffee and beer)--they turned in for a snooze. Thesilence of the night was broken by continual sharp, tinkling noises. Itwas some little time before they discovered that these arose from theice crystals as they formed along the surface of the water, shooting outin long needles and crossing each other, until every inch of the waterwas covered.
In the morning the ice was strong enough to bear their weight, althoughit bent in long waves beneath them as they hurried over it.
The frost continued. The ice was smooth, and black, and hard, andperfectly free from snow. Early and late, the boys sped lightly over iton their skates, enjoying to the full this most invigorating and healthyexercise.
Frank and Jimmy practised threes and eights and the spread-eagle, andthe other now old-fashioned figures, with great assiduity; and Dick,having soon mastered the inside edge, tumbled about most indefatigablyin his efforts to master the outside edge.
The frost continued with unabated severity, and soon the ice was twofeet thick, and the shallower portions of the broad were frozen to thebottom. One day Dick was skating at a good pace before the wind, whensomething beneath his feet in the transparent ice attracted hisattention, and in his haste to stop he came down very heavily. Heshouted to Frank and Jimmy to come up, and when they did so, he pointedto the ice at his feet. Midway in the water, where it was about two feetdeep, was a shoal of a dozen perch, most of them good sized ones, frozeninto the ice in various attitudes, betokening their last struggle toescape. The reason of their being so caught was explained by the factthat they were in a slight depression surrounded by shallower and weedywater, which had frozen so as to shut them in, and give them no means ofescape 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 stifflike that and live."
"I am not so sure about that," observed Dick; "caterpillars have beenknown to be frozen quite stiff, and to all appearance lifeless, yet theyrevive 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 thesmallest, 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 layerof water. During the night, however, the wind suddenly changed, and thislayer of water froze so quickly, that it held fast by the feet manywater-fowl which had been resting on the ice.
When the boys went down to the ice in the morning, they saw here andthere a dead or dying water-hen or coot thus made captive, andsurrounded by a group of the hooded crows, those grey-backed crows whichin the winter-time are so common in Norfolk, and the rapacious birdswere 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 somerunners, like large skate irons, made by the village blacksmith, and puton ordinary skates on each rudder to get steerage power, and soconstructed with great ease an ice-ship after the fashion of those usedin some parts of Canada. With this they sped over the ice at a farquicker rate than they had ever sailed upon the water, and they couldsteer her tolerably close to the wind. This amusement superseded theskating until the ice melted away, and the _Swan_ once more floated onthe water and sailed in her legitimate manner.