the great slide is like common slides in that when once you have started you have to go on to the end unless you fall down and then it hurts just as much as the smaller kind on ponds. the great slide runs downhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster and faster. george and jane went so fast that they had not time to notice the scenery. they only saw the long lines of frosted trees and the starry lamps, and on each side, rushing back as they slid on, a very broad, white world and a very large, black night; and overhead as well as in the trees the stars were bright like silver lamps, and far ahead shone and trembled and sparkled the line of fairy spears. jane said that, and george said: "i can see the northern lights quite plain."