."

"Jist learn anither, will ye, afore the morn's nicht?"

"I'll do that, Alec."

"Dinna ye like it, Curly?" asked Alec, for Curly had said nothing.

"Ay, fegs! (faith)" was Curly's emphatic and uncritical reply.

Annie therefore learned and repeated a few more, which, if not received
with equal satisfaction, yet gave sufficient pleasure to the listeners.
They often, however, returned to the first, demanding it over and over
again, till at length they knew it as well as she.

Hut a check was given for a while to these forenight meetings.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A rapid thaw set in, and up through the vanishing whiteness dawned the
dark colours of the wintry landscape. For a day or two the soft wet
snow lay mixed with water over all the road. After that came mire and
dirt. But it was still so far off spring, that nobody cared to be
reminded of it yet. So when, after the snow had vanished, a hard black
frost set in, it was welcomed by the schoolboys at least, whatever the
old people and the poor people, and especially those who were both old
and poor, may have thought of the change. Under the binding power of
this frost, the surface of the slow-flowing Glamour and of the swifter
Wan-Water, were once more chilled and stiffened to ice, which every day
grew thicker and stronger. And now, there being no coverlet of snow
upon it, the boys came out in troops, in their iron-shod shoes and
their clumsy skates, to skim along those floors of delight that the
winter had laid for them. To the fishes the ice was a warm blanket cast
over them to keep them from the frost. But they must have been dismayed
at the dim rush of so many huge forms above them, as if another river
with other and awful fishes had buried theirs. Alec and Willie left
their boat--almost for a time forgot it--repaired their skates, joined
their school-fellows, and shot along the solid water with the banks
flying past them. It was strange to see the banks thus from the middle
surface of the water. All was strange about them; and the delight of
the strangeness increased the delight of the motion, and sent the blood
through their veins swift as their flight along the frozen rivers.

For many afternoons and into the early nights, Alec and Curly held on
the joyful sport, and Annie was for the time left lonely. But she was
neither disconsolate nor idle. The boat was a sure pledge for them. To
the boat and her they must return. She went to the shop still, no