378 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



an iron hand. The once warm expanse of broad is now a 

 sheet of grey ice, bordered by yellow reed-stalks covered 

 with rime-frosted tassels. A necklace of white, half ice, half 

 snow crystal, encircles the mere, and tells brightly against 

 the dark evergreens and curiously-fashioned elm branches 

 that toss their leafless twigs against a yellowish - grey 

 snow-laden sky. There is music too as the steel-girt 

 feet of the skaters turn and twist, shooting forward or 

 curving gracefully in endless patterns across the field of 

 unpolished silver. Bright eyes flash and red cheeks glow 

 in the dead landscape, and faces turn skywards for a 

 moment as a wedge-shaped flock of golden plover dart 

 across the ice, their heads well thrust back into their necks, 

 bearing a fanciful resemblance to one of the dark i,mffs into 

 which girls' slender hands are thrust as far as the gloved and 

 supple wrists of the wearers. It is a sane and merry sight. 

 Only the fittest are out there the old and weak of man- 

 kind are nestling round the fires at home, whilst the old 

 and weak birds are lying dead under the hedgerows, stricken 

 by the rude though invigorating hand of the northern blast 

 that sweeps across the ice from N.N.E., catching up the girls' 

 dresses, showing neat ankles, rattling the twisted papers, 

 dropped by the smokers, that sail like ice ships with a 

 crackling noise across the ice into some reed bights, and 

 shaking the powdery feathers from the reed tassels. Gulls 

 flash against the heavy sky, seeking their quarry buried in 

 the ice; sometimes they hesitate, hover for a moment, and 

 fly on. Mayhap they have seen through the ice by yon 

 reed-bed the sharp snout and greenish shadow of a pike 

 lying with slowly oscillating fins on the alert for food, or 

 have their sharp eyes detected the frozen body of a roach 

 embalmed in the cold crystal ? Any way it is hoping against 

 hope for them, for the fish are securely lodged in their glassy 

 prisons. Come snow or wind, the pike are in a tranquil 

 world that rings only with the vibration of the skaters' feet. 

 Perhaps that is why the pike near the reeds for all were not 



