r he
was the only one of the villagers who could perform in any but the
clumsiest fashion, and, with an active interest that hovered between
jeering and applause, his neighbours followed him up and down the dam.
As I might not go on, I wandered up and down the bank too, and
occasionally joined in a murmured cheer when he deftly evaded some
intentional blunderer, or cut a figure at the request of his particular
friends. I got tired at last, and went down to the pond, where I
ploughed about for a time on my skates in solitude, for the pond was
empty. Then I ran up to the house to see if Jem had come back, but he
had not, and I returned to the dam to wait for the school-master.

The crowd was larger than before, for everybody's work-hours were over;
and the skater was still displaying himself. He was doing very difficult
figures now, and I ran round to where the bank was covered with people
watching him. In the minute that followed I remember three things with
curious distinctness. First, that I saw Mr. Wood coming back, only one
field off, and beckoned to him to be quick, because the lad was
beginning to cut a double three backwards, and I wanted the
school-master to see it. Secondly, that the sight of him seemed suddenly
to bring to my mind that we were all on the far side of the dam, the
side he thought dangerous. And thirdly, that, quickly as my eyes passed
from Mr. Wood to the skater, I caught sight of a bloated-looking young
man, whom we all knew as a sort of typical "bad lot," standing with
another man who was a great better, and from a movement between them, it
just flashed through my head that they were betting as to whether the
lad would cut the double three backwards or not.

He cut one--two--and then he turned too quickly and his skate caught in
the softening ice, and when he came headlong, his head struck, and
where it struck it went through. It looked so horrible that it was a
relief to see him begin to struggle; but the weakened ice broke around
him with every effort, and he went down.

For many a year afterwards I used to dream of his face as he sank, and
of the way the ice heaved like the breast of some living thing, and fell
back, and of the heavy waves that rippled over it out of that awful
hole. But great as was the shock, it was small to the storm of shame and
agony that came over me when I realized that every comrade who had been
around the lad had saved himself by a rush to the bank, where we huddl