AN ICE-SHIP. 251 



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 sup- 

 ported 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 toler- 

 ably 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 This amusement superseded the 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. 



CHAPTER XXXVIIL 



The Thaw. -Cromer. Prehistoric Remains. 



THE thaw was accompanied by torrents of rain for more than 

 a week. At the end of that time the boys were sitting in 

 the boat-house making up their Note-book, when Mr. Meredith 

 entered and said to them, 



"Will you drive with me to Cromer? I hear that a large 

 portion of the cliff has fallen away and exposed a bed con- 

 taining the bones and remains of prehistoric elephants and 

 other mammalia, and all the geologists of the country are going 

 there. I thought we might as well see these wonderful relics of 

 the past. What do you say ? " 



"We should like it above all things," said Frank for the 

 others ; and Mr. Merivale's horses were forthwith harnessed to 



