in the party, and one and all seemed full of excitement and
frolic.

Up and down the canal within the space of a half mile they
skated, exerting their racing powers to the utmost. Often the
swiftest among them was seen to dodge from under the very nose of
some pompous lawgiver or doctor who, with folded arms, was
skating leisurely toward the town; or a chain of girls would
suddenly break at the approach of a fat old burgomaster who, with
gold-headed cane poised in air, was puffing his way to Amsterdam.
Equipped in skates wonderful to behold, with their superb
strappings and dazzling runners curving over the instep and
topped with gilt balls, he would open his fat eyes a little if
one of the maidens chanced to drop him a curtsy but would not
dare to bow in return for fear of losing his balance.

Not only pleasure seekers and stately men of note were upon the
canal. There were workpeople, with weary eyes, hastening to
their shops and factories; market women with loads upon their
heads; peddlers bending with their packs; bargemen with shaggy
hair and bleared faces, jostling roughly on their way; kind-eyed
clergymen speeding perhaps to the bedsides of the dying; and,
after a while, groups of children with satchels slung over their
shoulders, whizzing past, toward the distant school. One and all
wore skates except, indeed, a muffled-up farmer whose queer cart
bumped along on the margin of the canal.

Before long our merry boys and girls were almost lost in the
confusion of bright colors, the ceaseless motion, and the
gleaming of skates flashing back the sunlight. We might have