therwise the
weather was fine.

It was mere child's play for the well-rested boys to skate to Leyden.
Here they halted awhile, for Peter had an errand at the Golden Eagle.

He left the city with a lightened heart; Dr. Boekman had been at the
hotel, read the note containing Hans's message, and departed for Broek.

"I cannot say that it was your letter sent him off so soon," explained
the landlord. "Some rich lady in Broek was taken bad very sudden, and he
was sent for in haste."

Peter turned pale.

"What was the name?" he asked.

"Indeed, it went in one ear and out of the other, for all I hindered it.
Plague on people who can't see a traveler in comfortable lodgings, but
they must whisk him off before one can breathe."

"A lady in Broek, did you say?"

"Yes." Very gruffly. "Any other business, young master?"

"No, mine host, except that I and my comrades here would like a bite of
something and a drink of hot coffee."

"Ah," said the landlord sweetly, "a bite you shall have, and coffee,
too, the finest in Leyden. Walk up to the stove, my masters--now I think
again--that was a widow lady from Rotterdam, I think they said, visiting
at one Van Stoepel's if I mistake not."

"Ah!" said Peter, greatly relieved. "They live in the white house by the
Schlossen Mill. Now, mynheer, the coffee, please!"

What a goose I was, thought he, as the party left the Golden Eagle, to
feel so sure that it was my mother. But she may be somebody's mother,
poor woman, for all that. Who can she be? I wonder.

There were not many upon the canal that day, between Leyden and Haarlem.
However, as the boys neared Amsterdam, they found themselves once more
in the midst of a moving throng. The big ysbreeker *{Icebreaker. A heavy
machine armed with iron spikes for breaking the ice as it is dragged
along. Some of the small ones are worked by men, but the large ones are
drawn by horses, sixty or seventy of which are sometimes attached to one
ysbreeker.} had been at work for the first time that season, but there
was any amount of skating ground left yet.

"Three cheers for home!" cried Van Mounen as they came in sight of the
great Western Dock (Westelijk Dok). "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted one and
all. "Hurrah! Hurrah!"

This trick of cheering was an importation among our party. Lambert van
Mounen had brought it from England. As they always gave it in English,
it was considered quite an exploit and, when circumstances permitted,
always enthusi