{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52636/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52636","id":"gutenberg_52636","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52636","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Fairy tales"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Cover art]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Sample page]\n\n[Transcriber's note: the above sample page is for right-hand\n(odd-numbered) pages.  For left-hand (even-numbered) pages, use a mirror\nimage of the sample page.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Frontispiece]\n\n\n\n\n                         _*The Queen Who Flew*_\n\n                             *A Fairy Tale*\n\n\n                                   By\n\n                             *FORD HUEFFER*\n\n                       AUTHOR OF \"THE BROWN OWL\"\n                      \"SHIFTING OF THE FIRE,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n                        _With a Frontispiece by_\n                           SIR E. BURNE JONES\n\n                                  AND\n\n                           _Border Design by_\n                            C. R. B. BARRETT\n\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                         BLISS, SANDS & FOSTER\n                      CRAVEN STREET, STRAND, W.C.\n                                  1894\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n\n                       A PRINCESS OF THE OLD TIME\n                               BEFORE US\n\n                               THIS TALE\n\n                         IS DUE AND DEDICATED.\n\n    _Over the leas the Princess came,_\n    _On the sward of the cliffs that breast the sea,_\n    _With her cheeks aglow and her hair aflame,_\n    _That snared the eyes and blinded them,_\n    _And now is but a memory._\n\n    _Over the leas, the wind-tossed dream,_\n    _Over the leas above the sea,_\n    _Passed and went to reign supreme._\n    _--No need of a crown or diadem_\n    _In the kingdom of misty Memory._\n\n\n\n\n                         *THE QUEEN WHO FLEW.*\n\n\nOnce upon a time a Queen sat in her garden. She was quite a young, young\nQueen; but that was a long while ago, so she would be older now.  But,\nfor all she was Queen over a great and powerful country, she led a very\nquiet life, and sat a great deal alone in her garden watching the roses\ngrow, and talking to a bat that hung, head downwards, with its wings\nfolded, for all the world like an umbrella, beneath the shade of a rose\ntree overhanging her favourite marble seat.  She did not know much about\nthe bat, not even that it could fly, for her servants and nurses would\nnever allow her to be out at dusk, and the bat was a great deal too\nweak-eyed to fly about in the broad daylight.\n\nBut, one summer day, it happened that there was a revolution in the\nland, and the Queen's servants, not knowing who was likely to get the\nupper hand, left the Queen all alone, and went to look at the fight that\nwas raging.\n\nBut you must understand that in those days a revolution was a thing very\ndifferent from what it would be to-day.\n\nInstead of trying to get rid of the Queen altogether, the great nobles\nof the kingdom merely fought violently with each other for possession of\nthe Queen's person.  Then they would proclaim themselves Regents of the\nkingdom and would issue bills of attainder against all their rivals,\nsaying they were traitors against the Queen's Government.\n\nIn fact, a revolution in those days was like what is called a change of\nMinistry now, save for the fact that they were rather fond of indulging\nthemselves by decapitating their rivals when they had the chance, which\nof course one would never think of doing nowadays.\n\nThe Queen and the bat had been talking a good deal that afternoon--about\nthe weather and about the revolution and the colour of cats and the\nlike.\n\n\"The raven will have a good time of it for a day or two,\" the bat said.\n\nBut the Queen shuddered.  \"Don't be horrid,\" she said.\n\n\"I wonder who'll get the upper hand?\" the bat said.\n\n\"I'm sure I don't care a bit,\" the Queen retorted.  \"It doesn't make any\ndifference to me. They all give me things to sign, and they all say I'm\nvery beautiful.\"\n\n\"That's because they want to marry you,\" the bat said.\n\nAnd the Queen answered, \"I suppose it is; but I shan't marry them.  And\nI wish _all_ my attendants weren't deaf and dumb; it makes it so awfully\ndull for me.\"\n\n\"That's so that they shan't abuse the Regent behind his back,\" the bat\nsaid.  \"Well, I shall take a fly.\"  The truth was, he felt insulted that\nthe Queen should say she was dull when she had him to talk to.\n\nBut the Queen was quite frightened when he whizzed past her head and out\ninto the dusky evening, where she could see him flitting about jerkily,\nand squeaking shrilly to paralyze the flies with fright.\n\nAfter a while he got over his fit of sulks, and came back again to hang\nin his accustomed bough.\n\n\"Why--you can fly!\" the Queen said breathlessly. It gave her a new idea\nof the importance of the bat.\n\nThe bat said, \"I can.\"  He was flattered by her admiration.\n\n\"I wish _I_ could fly,\" the Queen said.  \"It would be so much more\nexciting than being boxed up here.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"Why don't you?\"\n\n\"Because I haven't got wings, I suppose,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"You shouldn't suppose,\" the bat said sharply. \"Half the evils in the\nworld come from people supposing.\"\n\n\"What are the 'evils in the world'?\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the bat answered, \"What! don't you even know that, you ignorant\nlittle thing?  The evils in the world are ever so many--strong winds so\nthat one can't fly straight, and cold weather so that the flies die, and\nrheumatic pains in one's wing-joints, and cats and swallows.\"\n\n\"I like cats,\" the Queen said; \"and swallows are very pretty.\"\n\n\"That's what _you_ think,\" the bat said angrily. \"But you're nobody.\nNow, I hate cats because they always want to eat me; and I hate swallows\nbecause they always eat what I want to eat--flies. They are the real\nevils of the world.\"\n\nThe Queen saw that he was angry, and she held her peace for a while.\n\n\"I'm not nobody, all the same,\" she thought to herself, \"I'm the Queen\nof the 'most prosperous and contented nation in the world,' though I\ndon't quite understand what it means. But it will never do to offend the\nbat, it is so dreadfully dull when he won't talk;\" so she said, \"Would\nit be possible for me to fly?\" for a great longing had come into her\nheart to be able to fly away out of the garden with the roses and the\nmarble bench.\n\n\"Well, it certainly won't be if you suppose you can't,\" the bat said.\n\"Now, when I was a mouse, I used to suppose I couldn't fly, and so, of\ncourse, I couldn't.  But, one day, I saved the life of a cockchafer that\nhad got into a beetle-trap, and he told me how it was to be managed.\"\n\n\"How?\" the Queen said eagerly.\n\n\"Ah, you like cats,\" the bat said, \"and you'd tell them the secret; and\nthen there'd be no peace for me.  Ugh!--flying cats!\"  And the bat\nshuddered and wrapped his wings round his head.\n\n\"Oh, but I promise I won't tell,\" the Queen said eagerly; \"indeed I do.\nDear bat, you are so wise, and so good, and so handsome, do tell me.\"\n\nNow, the bat was rather susceptible to compliments, and so he unshrouded\nhis head, pretending not to have heard, though he had.\n\n\"What did you say?\" he said.\n\nAnd the Queen repeated her words.\n\nThat pleased him, and he answered, \"Well, there's a certain flower that\nhas two remarkable properties--one, that people who carry it about with\nthem can always fly, and the other, that it will restore the blind to\nsight.\"\n\n\"Yes; but I shall have to travel over ever so many mountains and rivers\nand things before I can find it,\" the Queen said dismally.\n\n\"How do you know that?\" the bat asked sharply.\n\n\"I don't know it, I only supposed it; at least I've read it in books.\"\n\n\"Well, of course, if you go supposing things and reading them in books,\nI can't do anything for you,\" the bat said.  \"The only good I can see in\nbooks is that they breed bookworms, and the worms turn into flies; but\neven they aren't very good to eat.  When I was a mouse, though, I used\nto nibble books to pieces, and the bits made rare good nests.  So there\nis some good in the most useless of things.  But I don't need a nest now\nthat I can fly.\"\n\n\"How did you come to be able to fly?\" the Queen asked.\n\n\"Well, after what the cockchafer told me, I just ran out into the\ngarden, and when I found the flower, as I hadn't any pocket to put it in\nso as to have it always by me, I just ate it up, and from that time\nforward I have been able to fly ever so well.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh, how nice!  And is the flower actually here in the\ngarden?  Tell me which it is, please do.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you if you'll bring me a nice piece of raw meat, and a\nlittle red flannel for my rheumatism.\"\n\nJust at that moment the sound of a great bell sounded out into the\ngarden.\n\n\"Oh, how annoying!\" the Queen said.  \"Just as it was beginning to be\ninteresting!  Now I shall have to go in to dinner.  But I'll bring you\nthe meat and the flannel to-morrow, and then you'll tell me, won't you?\"\n\nThe bat said, \"We'll see about it,\" and so the Queen arose from her\nseat, and, stooping to avoid the roses that caught at her, went out\ntowards the palace and up the marble steps into it.\n\nThe palace was an enormous hall, all of marble, and very, very cold.\n\nThe dining-room itself was a vast hall, as long as an ordinary street,\nwith a table as long and as broad as the roadway thereof, so that the\npoor little Queen felt rather lonely, sitting at one end of it, with the\nenormous vessels all of gold, and the great gold candlesticks, and the\nlong line of deaf and dumb domestics that stood and looked on, or\npresented their dishes kneeling.\n\nGenerally the Regent's wife, or, if he hadn't one, his sister or mother,\nacted as the Queen's governess, and stood behind her chair.  But that\nevening there was no one at all.\n\n\"I suppose they've cut her head off,\" the Queen said resignedly.  \"I\nwonder what the next one will be like.  But I shan't be bothered with\nher long, if the bat tells me how to fly.  I shall just go right off\nsomewhere, and see mountains, and valleys, and rivers, and seas; and\nhundreds and hundreds of wonderful things out of books.  Oh, it will be\nlovely!  And as to the Regents, they can just cut each other's heads off\nas much as they like.\"\n\nAnd so, having dined, she went to bed, and lay a long time awake\nthinking how delightful it would be to fly.\n\nThe next morning, at breakfast, she found a note to say that the Lord\nBlackjowl desired an early audience with her on the subject of the\nRegency.\n\n\"I suppose I _must_ go,\" the Queen said.  \"I do hope he won't be much\nwounded, it's so nasty to look at, and I _did_ want to go into the\ngarden to see the bat.\"\n\nHowever, she went down into the audience chamber at once, to get it\nover.  The guard drew back the curtain in the doorway and she went in. A\ngreat man with a black beard was awaiting her, and at her entrance sank\ndown on one knee.\n\n\"Oh, get up, please,\" she said.  \"I don't like talking to men when they\nkneel, it looks so stupid. What is it you want?  I suppose it's about\nthe Regency.\"\n\nThe Lord Blackjowl arose.  His eyes were little and sharp; they seemed\nto look right through the Queen.\n\n\"Your Majesty is correct, as so peerless a lady must be,\" he said \"The\nnobles and people were groaning under the yoke of the late traitor and\ntyrant who called himself Regent, and so we took the liberty, the great\nliberty, of----\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I know what you want,\" the Queen interrupted him.  \"You want to\nbe pardoned for the unconstitutionality of it.  So I suppose I shall\nhave to pardon you.  If you give me the paper I'll sign it.\"\n\nThe Lord Blackjowl handed her one of many papers that he held in his\nhand.\n\n\"If your Majesty will be graciously pleased to sign it here.\"\n\nSo the Queen sat down at a table and signed the crackling paper\n\"Eldrida--Queen.\"\n\n\"I never sign it 'Eldrida R.,'\" she said.  \"It's ridiculous to sign it\nin a language that isn't one's own.  Now I suppose you want me to sign a\npaper appointing you Regent?\"\n\nThe Lord Blackjowl looked at her from under his shaggy eyebrows.\n\n\"That was included in the paper your Majesty has been graciously pleased\nto sign.\"\n\n\"But I didn't know anything about it,\" the Queen said hotly.  \"Now\nthat's deceiving, and I shall never be able to trust anything you give\nme to sign without reading it.  I've a good mind to take it back again.\"\n\n\"I assure your Majesty,\" the lord answered, with a low bow, \"I merely\nwished to save your Majesty the trouble of twice appending your gracious\nsignature when once would suffice.\"\n\n\"But why didn't you tell me what was in it?\" she asked, a little\nmollified.\n\n\"Merely because your Majesty took the words out of my mouth, if I may so\nsay.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Well, and what else do you want me to do?\"\n\n\"There are sundry traitorous persons of the faction of the late Regent,\nwhose existence is dangerous to the peace of the realm, and against whom\nI wish to issue writs of attainder if your Majesty will consent.\"\n\n\"Yes, I thought so,\" the Queen said.  \"How many are there?\"\n\n\"Three thousand nine hundred and forty,\" the Regent said, looking at a\ngreat scroll.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" the Queen said.  \"Why, that's five times as many as\never there were before.\"\n\nThe Regent stroked his beard \"There is a great deal of disaffection in\nthe land,\" he said.\n\n\"Why, the last Regent said the people were ever so contented,\" the Queen\nanswered.\n\n\"The last Regent has deceived your Majesty.\"\n\n\"That's what they all say about the last Regent. Why, it was only the\nother day that he told me that you were deceitful--and you _are_--and he\nsaid that you had thrown your wife into a yard full of hungry dogs, in\norder that you might marry me.\"\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" the Regent said, flushing with heavy anger, \"the late\nRegent was a tyrant, and all tyrants are untruthful, as your Majesty's\nwisdom must tell you.  My wife had the misfortune to fall into a\nbear-pit, and, as for my daring to raise my eyes as high as your\nMajesty----\"\n\n\"Why, you're looking at me now,\" the Queen said.  \"However, it doesn't\nmatter.  You can't marry me till I'm twenty-one, and I shan't be that\nfor some time.  By-the-by, who's going to be my next governess?\"\n\n\"Your Majesty is now of an age to need no governess.  I think a tutor\nwould be more suitable--with your Majesty's consent.\"\n\n\"Well, who's to be my tutor, then?\" the Queen said.\n\n\"I had purposed according that inestimable honour to myself,\" the Regent\nanswered.\n\n\"Oh, I say!  You'll never do!\" the Queen remarked.  \"You could never\ndarn a pair of stockings, or comb my hair.  You'd be so awfully clumsy.\"\n\n\"Your Majesty has no need to have your royal stockings darned; you can\nalways have a new pair.\"\n\n\"But that would be so fearfully wasteful!\" the Queen said.\n\n\"Your Majesty might give the other pairs to the poor.\"\n\n\"But what _are_ 'the poor'?\"\n\n\"The poor are wicked, idle people--too wicked to work and earn the\nmoney, and too dirty to wear stockings,\" the Regent said.\n\n\"But what would be the good of my stockings to them?\" the Queen asked.\n\n\"It is the usual thing, your Majesty,\" the Regent said.  \"But will your\nMajesty be pleased to sign these papers?\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh yes, I'll sign them, if you'll just go down into the\nkitchen and ask for a piece of raw meat, about the size of my hand, and\na piece of red flannel about large enough to go round a bat.  Oh, and\nwhat's a good thing for rheumatism?\"\n\nThe Regent looked a little surprised.  \"I--your Majesty, I really don't\nexactly know.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, ask the cook or somebody.\"\n\n\"Well, but--couldn't I send a servant, your Majesty?\" the Regent said.\n\n\"No, that wouldn't be any good,\" the Queen said.  \"If you're to take the\nplace of my governess you'll have to do that sort of thing, you know.\"\n\nThe Regent bowed.  \"Of course I shall be only too grateful for your\nMajesty's commands. I merely thought that your Majesty might need some\nassistance in signing the papers.\"\n\nBut the Queen answered, \"Oh no, I can manage that sort of thing well\nenough myself.  I'm quite used to it; so be quick, and remember, a nice\njuicy piece of raw meat and some red flannel, and--oh, opodeldoc; that's\njust the thing. Be quick!  I don't want to keep the bat waiting.\"\n\nThe Regent went backwards out of the room, bowing at every three steps,\nand, as he was clad in armour from top to toe, he made a clanking\nnoise--quite like a tinker's cart, if you've ever beard one.\n\nSo, left to herself, the Queen signed the papers one after the other.\nThey all began--\n\n                  \"By THE QUEEN, A PROCLAMATION, E.R.\n\n\"Whereas by our Proclamation given this 1st day of May----\n\n\nBut the Queen never read any further than that, because she could never\nquite understand what it all meant.  At the last signature the happened\nto make a little blot, and somehow or other the ink happened to get into\none of her nails, and that annoyed her.  It _is_ so difficult to get ink\nout of one's nails.\n\n\"I don't care if I never sign another Proclamation,\" she said; \"and I\nhope I never shall. Now, look here,\" she continued to the Regent, who at\nthat moment entered.  \"If you were a governess I should be able to make\nyou get this ink out; but how can I ask a man to do that?\"\n\n\"I will make the attempt, if your Majesty pleases,\" the Regent said.\n\n\"Well, but you haven't got any nail-scissors,\" the Queen replied.\n\n\"I might use my sword,\" the Regent suggested.\n\nBut the Queen shivered.  \"Ugh! fancy having a great ugly thing like that\nfor it!\" she said. \"Oh, well, you've brought the things!  Here are your\npapers.  They're all signed; and, if you want anything else, you'll have\nto come into the garden.\"\n\nAnd she took up the meat and the flannel and the opodeldoc and went into\nthe garden, leaving the Regent with the idea that he had made rather a\nbad business by becoming the Queen's attendant.  But he was a very\ndetermined man, and merely set his teeth the firmer.\n\nUnder the overhanging rose tree the Queen sat awaiting the bat's\nawakening.\n\n\"It never does to wake him up,\" she said. \"It makes him so bad\ntempered.\"\n\nSo she sat patiently and watched the rose-petals that every now and then\nfluttered down on the wind.\n\nIt was well on towards the afternoon, after the Queen had had her\ndinner, before he awoke.\n\n\"Oh, you're there?\" he said.  He had made the same remark every day for\nthe last two years--which made seven hundred and thirty-one times, one\nof the years having been leap-year.\n\nThe Queen said, \"Yes, here I am!\"\n\nThe bat yawned.  \"What's the weather like?\" he asked.\n\nThe Queen answered, \"Oh, it's very nice, and you promised to tell me the\nflower that would make me fly.\"\n\n\"I shan't,\" the bat said.  \"You'd eat up all the flies--a great thing\nlike you.\"\n\nThe Queen's eyes filled with tears, it was so disappointing.\n\n\"Oh, I promise I won't eat _any_ flies,\" she said; \"and I'll go right\naway and leave you in peace.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"Um! there's something in that.\"\n\n\"And look,\" the Queen continued, \"I've brought you your meat and\nflannel, and some stuff that's good for rheumatism.\"\n\nThe bat's eyes twinkled with delight.  \"Well, I'll tell you,\" he said.\n\"Only you must promise, first, that you won't tell any one the secret;\nand secondly, that you won't eat any flies.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I'll promise that willingly enough.\"\n\n\"Well, put the things up here on the top of the seat and I'll tell you.\"\n\nThe Queen did as she was bidden, and the bat continued--\n\n\"The flower you want is at this moment being trodden on by your foot.\"\n\nThe Queen felt a little startled, but, looking down, saw a delicate\nwhite flower that had trailed from a border and was being crushed\nbeneath her small green shoes.\n\n\"What! the wind-flower?\" she said.  \"I always thought it was only a\nweed.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't think,\" the bat said.  \"It's as bad as supposing.\"\n\n\"Well, and how am I to set about flying?\" the Queen asked.\n\nAnd the bat answered sharply, \"Why, fly.  Put the flower somewhere about\nyou, and then go off.  Only be careful not to knock against things.\"\n\nThe Queen thought for a moment, and then plucked a handful and a handful\nand yet a handful of the wind-flowers, and, having twined them into a\ncarcanet, wound them into her soft gold-brown hair, beneath her small\ncrown royal.\n\n\"Good-bye, dear bat,\" she said.  She had grown to like the bat, for all\nhis strange appearance and surly speeches.\n\nThe bat remarked, \"Good riddance.\"  He was always a little irritable\njust after awakening.\n\nSo the Queen went out from under the arbour, and made a first essay at\nflying.\n\n\"I'll make just a short flight at first,\" she said, and gave a little\njump, and in a moment she flew right over a rose bush and came down\nsoftly on the turf on its further side, quite like a not too timid\npigeon that has to make a little flight from before a horse's feet.\n\n\"Oh, come, that was a success,\" she said to herself.  \"And it really is\ntrue.  Well, I'll just practise a little before I start to see the\nworld.\"\n\nSo she flew over several trees, gradually going higher and higher, until\nat last she caught a glimpse of the red town roofs, and then, in a swift\nmoment's rush, she flew over the high white wall and alighted in the\nroad that bordered it.\n\n\"Hullo!\" a voice said before she had got used to the new sensation of\nbeing out in the world. \"Hullo! where did you drop from?\"\n\n\"I didn't drop--I flew,\" the Queen said severely; and she looked at the\nman.\n\nHe was stretched on the ground, leaning his back against the wall, and\nbasking in the hot sunlight that fell on him.  He was very ragged and\nvery dirty, and he had neither shoes nor stockings, By his side was a\nbasket in which, over white paper frills, nodded the heads of young\nferns.\n\n\"Why, who are you?\" the Queen said.  And then her eyes fell on his bare\nfeet.  They reminded her of what the Regent had said that morning.  \"Oh,\nyou must be the poor,\" she said, \"and you want my stockings.\"\n\n\"I don't know about your stockings, lady,\" the man said; \"but if you've\ngot any old clothes to spare, I could give you some nice pots of flowers\nfor them.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Why, what good would that do you?\"\n\nAnd the man answered, \"I should sell them and get some money.  I'm\nfearfully hungry.\"\n\n\"Why don't you have something to eat, then?\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the man replied, \"Because I haven't got any money to buy it with.\"\n\n\"Why don't you take it, then?\"\n\n\"Because it would be stealing, and stealing's wicked; besides, I should\nbe sent to prison for it.\"\n\n\"I don't understand quite what you mean,\" the Queen said.  \"But come\nwith me somewhere where we can get some food, and you shall have as much\nas you like.\"\n\nThe fern-seller arose with alacrity.\n\n\"There's a shop near here where they sell some delicious honey-cakes.\"\n\n\"I can't make it out,\" the Queen said to herself. \"If he's hungry he\ncan't be contented; and yet the Regent said every one was contented in\nthe land, because of his being Regent.  He must have been mistaken, or\nelse this man must be one of the traitors.\"\n\nAnd aloud she said, \"Is there a bill of attainder out against you?\"\n\nThe beggar shook his head.  \"I guess not,\" he said.  \"Tradesmen won't\nlet the likes of me run up bills.\"\n\nIt was a remark the Queen could not understand at all.  They crossed the\nmarket-place that lay before the palace door.\n\n\"There's no market to-day because the people are all afraid the\nrevolution isn't over yet.\"\n\n\"Oh, but it is,\" the Queen said; \"I made the Lord Blackjowl Regent\nto-day.\"\n\nThe beggar looked at her with a strange expression; but the Queen\ncontinued--\n\n\"I don't see what harm the revolution could do to the market.\"\n\n\"Why, don't you see,\" the beggar said, \"when they get to fighting the\narrows fly about all over the place, and the horses would knock the\nstalls over.  Besides, the soldiers steal everything, or set fire to it.\nLook, there's a house still smouldering.\"\n\nAnd, indeed, one of the market houses was a heap of charred ruins.\n\n\"But what was the good of it?\" the Queen asked.\n\nAnd the beggar answered, \"Well, you see, it belonged to one of the\nopposite party, and he wouldn't surrender and have his head chopped\noff.\"\n\n\"I should think not,\" the Queen said.\n\nThe streets were quite empty, and all the shutters were closed.  Here\nand there an arrow was sticking into the walls or the doors.\n\n\"Do people never walk about the streets?\" the Queen asked.\n\n\"It wouldn't be safe when there's a revolution on,\" the beggar answered.\n\nJust at that moment they arrived before the door of a house that, like\nall the rest, was closely shut up.  Over the door was written--\n\n                             \"JAMES GRUBB,\n                          _Honey-cake Maker_.\"\n\n\nHere the beggar stopped and began to beat violently at the door with his\nstaff.\n\nThe sound of the blows echoed along the streets,--and then from within\ncame dismal shouts of \"Murder!\" \"Police!\" \"Fire!\"\n\nBut the beggar called back, \"Nonsense, James Grubb; it's only a lady\ncome for some honey-cakes.\"\n\nThen, after a long while, there was a clatter of chains behind the door,\nand it was opened just an inch, so that the Queen could see an old man's\nface peeping cautiously out at her.  The sight seemed to reassure him,\nfor he opened the door and bobbed nervously.  At other times he would\nhave bowed suavely.\n\n\"Will your ladyship be pleased to enter?\" he said.  \"I want to shut the\ndoor; it is so dangerous to have it open with all these revolutions\nabout.\"\n\nThe Queen complied with his request, and found herself in a little dark\nshop, only lighted dimly through the round air-holes in the shutters.\n\n\"Give this man some honey-cakes,\" she said; and the honey-cake maker\nseemed only too delighted.\n\n\"How many shall I give him, madam?\" he said.\n\n\"As many as he wants, of course,\" the Queen answered sharply.\n\nThe beggar proceeded to help himself, and made a clean sweep of all the\ncakes that were on the counter.  There was a big hole in his coat, and\ninto that he thrust them, so that the lining at last was quite full.\n\nThe honey-cake maker was extremely pleased at the sight, for he had not\nexpected to sell any cakes that day.\n\nWhen the cakes had all disappeared there was an awkward pause.\n\n\"Now I'll go on again,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"But you haven't paid,\" the honey-cake maker said in some alarm.\n\n\"Pay!\" said the Queen.  \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Paid for the cakes, I mean,\" the honey-cake maker said.\n\n\"I don't understand you,\" she answered.  \"I am the Queen; I never pay\nfor what I eat.\"\n\n\"She _is_ the Queen,\" the beggar said; \"and if you don't take care\nshe'll have your head off.\"\n\nThe honey-cake maker jumped back so suddenly that he sat down in a tub\nof honey and stuck there doubled up with his knees to his chin.\n\n\"O Lord!  O Lord!\" he said.  \"What shall I do? what shall I do?--all my\ncakes gone, and never to be paid!\"\n\n\"You won't want to be paid if your head's cut off,\" the beggar said.\n\nBut the Queen answered, \"Nonsense.  No one's going to cut your head off;\nand I dare say, if you ask them at the palace, they'll pay you, whatever\nit means.  Just pull him out of the tub,\" she continued to the beggar,\nfor the unfortunate honey-baker, not being able to move, remained\ngasping in the tub.\n\nSo the beggar pulled him out, and, for all his fright, his business\nspirit did not desert him.\n\n\"Will your Majesty deign to sign an order for payment?\" he said.\n\nAnd the Queen answered, \"Good gracious, no, I won't; the ink always gets\ninto my finger-nails.\"\n\nThe honey-cake maker bowed lower still.  \"At least, your Majesty, deign\nto give me your signet-ring as a token.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll give you that,\" the Queen said; and she drew it from her\nfinger.\n\nThe honey-cake maker suddenly smote his forehead with his hand, as\nthough an idea had struck him.\n\n\"You might carry that ladder out for me,\" he said to the beggar,\nindicating a ladder that lay along the passage wall.\n\nThe beggar did as he was asked, and placed it against the house.\n\n\"Whatever is he going to do now?\" the Queen thought to herself, and,\nbeing in the street, awaited the turn of events.\n\nPresently the honey-cake maker came out, carrying a pail of black paint\nand a large brush, and, thus equipped, ascended the ladder and began to\npaint, under the\n\n                             \"JAMES GRUBB,\n                          _Honey-cake Maker_,\"\n               \"_to Her Majesty the Queen and the R----_\"\n\nBut he had got no further than that, when, with tumultuous shouts, a\nbody of soldiers came rushing round a corner, and, seeing the honey-cake\nmaker on the ladder and his door open, they at once tumbled pell-mell\ninto the shop.\n\nNo sooner did the unfortunate maker of cakes see this, than, in his\nhaste to descend the ladder, his foot slipped, and he came to the\nground, with the paint out of the pot running dismally all over his\nhead.\n\n\"Oh dear! oh dear!\" the Queen said, and went to pick him up, when, at\nthat moment, the soldiers having found nothing in the shop but a tub of\nhoney and a tub of flour, came out again, not quite as fast as they had\nentered, until they saw the Queen, when they at once rushed to surround\nher, and one of them caught at her crown, and another at her bracelets,\nand another at her lace-handkerchief!\n\nThe Queen said, \"Leave me alone, do you hear?\"\n\nBut the soldiers answered, \"In the Queen's name, surrender.\"\n\n\"Well, I shouldn't surrender in any name but my own, and I shan't\nsurrender at all.  I am the Queen.\"\n\nWhereupon the leader of the soldiers, who had not had the fortune to get\nat any of the Queen's jewellery, said, \"Release the lady;\" and, rather\ncrestfallen, the soldiers obeyed him.\n\n\"Oh, your Majesty,\" the leader said, kneeling, \"we have had such a\ntrouble to find you.  The Regent, discovering that your Majesty had left\nthe palace, told us to follow you with all haste to provide for your\nsafety.\"\n\n\"So you provided for it by trying to rob people's houses,\" the Queen\nsaid.\n\nAnd the leader answered, \"Oh no, your Majesty. We feared, knowing that\nJames Grubb is a noted rebel, that he had kidnapped your Majesty, and so\nwere making a domiciliary search.\"\n\n\"I'm not a noted rebel,\" the honey-cake maker gasped.  \"I'm only noted\nfor my honey-cakes.\"\n\nBut no one noticed his little puff.\n\nThe Queen said to the soldiers, \"Well, I don't want you.  You can go;\nand don't make any more domiciliary searches.\"\n\nThe leader, however, answered, \"Oh, but, your Majesty, domiciliary\nsearches are most necessary in the present state of the kingdom.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" the Queen said; \"I forbid you to make them.  So now go\naway.\"\n\n\"But, your Majesty,\" the leader answered, \"the Regent gave us orders to\nconduct your Majesty back to the palace.  It is not constitutional.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I don't care,\" the Queen answered; \"I'm not going back.\nGood-bye.\"\n\nAnd she suddenly flew straight up into the air and away over the\nhousetops, and the last sight she had of them showed them, with their\nfaces upturned towards her, gazing in dumb astonishment, the leader\nstill on his knees and the honey-cake maker on his back in the street.\n\nThe beggar had long since slunk round a corner and disappeared.\n\nSo the Queen rose to quite a great height in the air.\n\n\"I shall go right away from the town,\" she said \"The smoke is so choking\nup here above the roofs.  However people can live down there I can't\nmake out.\"\n\nSo she went right up into the blue sky and made her way towards where,\nat the skirts of the town, the mountains rose steep and frowning.\n\nUp there, standing on the mountain's crest, she had a glorious view of\nsea and sky and town and country.\n\nThe sea threw back the deep blue of the sky above, and the white\nwave-horses flecked its surface, and the ships passed silently far out\nat sea; down below her feet, it beat against the rocky base of the\ncliff, and in and out amongst the spray the seagulls flew like a white\ncloud.\n\nThe town lay in a narrow valley, broad at the sea face, and running\ninwards into narrowness between grey, grand hills, right to where it\ndisappeared in the windings of the pass.  Down below, in the harbour,\nshe could see the boats getting ready for sea.\n\n\"Oh, how wonderful!\" the Queen said; \"and it all belongs to me--at\nleast, so they say--though I can't quite see what good it does me, for I\ncan't be everywhere at once.  And I can't even make the hills move or\nthe sea heave its breast; so that I can't see that it does me any more\ngood than any one else, because it isn't even constitutional for me to\nbe here.  I ought to be down there in the palace garden, seeing nothing\nat all.  However, it's very lovely here, so I mustn't grumble.  I wonder\nhow the bat is getting on, and the Regent, and all.\"\n\nSo for a while she stayed, looking down at the town.  Into the streets\nshe could not see, for the houses stood in the way, but she could see\nthe market-place plainly enough and the palace steps.\n\nPresently a number of soldiers came running into the market-place, and\nup into the palace, and the Queen knew they had come to announce her\nflight.\n\nAnd then, a few minutes after, she saw then coming rapidly out of the\ndoors.\n\n\"Goodness me!\" the Queen said, \"the Regent is kicking them down the\nsteps.  I shan't go back there again, or he might take to kicking me.\"\n\nSo she set out along the hilltops, sometimes walking and sometimes\nflying over the valleys, so that, by the time the sun was near setting,\nshe found herself in a great stretch of dreary uplands, with nothing\nlike a house for miles around.\n\n\"Now, whatever shall I do?\" she said.  \"It's coming on quite dark, and I\ndon't know where I am.  I've a good mind to lie down and go to sleep on\nthe heather; only there might be some sort of wild animals about, and it\nwouldn't be safe.\"\n\nThen the sun sank lower and lower, and the Queen began to feel a little\nlonely and very nervous.  There was not a sound to be heard, save the\nroar of a brook that ran, gleaming white, among the boulders in the\ngloom of the valley at her feet.\n\n\"If I fly right up in the air again I shall be safe, at any rate,\" the\nQueen said.  \"I shan't go tumbling over precipices or getting eaten up\nby wolves.\"\n\nSo she flew right up into the upper air where she could see the sun\nagain, and she tried to catch him up, flying fast, fast westwards.  But\nshe found that the sun went a great deal faster than she could go--for,\nyou know, the sun goes a great deal more quickly than a train--and\ngradually he sank below the horizon, and the Queen was left alone with\nnothing but the stars to keep her company.\n\nAs you may imagine, it was not the pleasantest of feelings, that flying\nthrough the pitch-dark night, and the Queen felt continually afraid of\nrunning against something, though she was really far too high to do any\nsuch thing.\n\nBut, for all that, she had the dread constantly in her mind, until at\nlast the moon crept silently into being above a hill, seeming like an\nold friend, and soon all the land below was bathed in white light.  The\nQueen glided on; like a black cloud, she could see her shadow running\nalong the fields below her.  She watched till she grew sleepier and\nsleepier, and found herself nodding, to wake with a start and then fall\noff to sleep again; till, at last, she fell asleep for good and all, and\nwent sailing quietly along in the white night, whilst the moon gradually\nmounted up straight overhead, and then sank lower and lower, and the\ndawn began to wash the world below her with a warmer light.\n\nBut the Queen slept softly on; and, indeed, never bed was softer than\nthe air of the summer night.\n\nThe sun had been up some little while when she was awakened by just\ntouching on the top of a lofty mountain, that reached up into the sky\nand stopped her progress; so that, when she was fully awakened, she\nfound herself seated on its peak.\n\nShe rubbed her eyes, and in a moment remembered all that had happened\nbefore she had dropped off to sleep.\n\n\"Goodness me!  I feel awfully hungry,\" she said to herself, and,\nstanding up, looked around her.\n\nOn the one side, the mountain towered above the uplands over which she\nhad passed in the night, but they looked dreary and uninviting; on the\nother, in a fair plain, stood a town--she could see the smoke rising\nfrom the chimneys and the weather-cocks gleaming in the morning sunlight\nas they veered about in the breeze.  So she flew gently down towards it,\nand the shepherds in the fields and the women at the cottage doors\nstared in amazement, and came rushing after her as she swept past\nthrough the air.\n\nSo, by the time she arrived in the town, quite a great crowd had\nfollowed her.\n\nAt last she alighted just before the town gates, and, as there was no\nguard to stop her, entered boldly enough, and walked on for a little way\nuntil she came to a shop that seemed to be a cake-shop, for one half of\nits window was full of cakes, and the other of boots and shoes.  And,\nindeed, the owner, an old man with spectacles on, was seated on his\ndoorstep busily working away at his cobbler's bench.\n\nThe Queen said, \"I want some cakes, please.\"\n\nAnd the cobbler, looking up from his work, said, \"Then you've come to\nthe right shop.\"\n\nThe crowd stood round in a ring and whispered.\n\n\"Will you give me them, please?\" the Queen continued.\n\nAnd the old cobbler answered, \"I'll sell them to you.\"\n\n\"But I haven't got any money,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"Then you've come to the _wrong_ shop,\" the cobbler said determinedly,\nand looked down again at his work.\n\n\"But I'm the Queen,\" she said, remembering her former experience.\n\nThe cobbler said, \"Nonsense!\" and took a little brass nail from his\nmouth.\n\n\"But I _am_ the Queen,\" the Queen said angrily.\n\nThe cobbler knocked the nail into the shoe. \"King Mark's a widower,\" was\nall he said.\n\nAnd the crowd laughed until the Queen felt quite uncomfortable.  She was\nnot used to being stared at.\n\n\"Why, I must have got into another country,\" she said to herself; \"and,\nI suppose, the best thing to do will be to see the King.  I dare say\nhe'll give me enough to eat, for he'll tremble at my name.\"\n\nSo she said aloud, \"Take me to the King.\"\n\nAnd so the crowd showed her the way, some going in front and some\nfollowing; but all so anxious to see her that they stumbled over each\nother's legs.\n\nBut at last they came to the palace, and the crowd opened to make way\nfor her.  To tell the truth, they seemed rather afraid to enter, but the\nQueen marched in boldly enough till she came to a great hall.  Long\nbefore she had time to make out what it was like, an enormous voice\nshouted--\n\n\"Who the dickens are you?\"\n\nAnd, looking at the throne, she could make out an enormous,\nblack-bearded man seated thereon. He was a great deal more ugly than the\nRegent at home had been, and his red eyes twinkled underneath black,\nshaggy brows, like rubies in a cavern.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he shouted.\n\nAnd whilst his fearful voice echoed down the great dark hall, the Queen\nanswered--\n\n\"If you won't tremble, I'll tell you.\"\n\nThe King gave a tremendous roar of laughter. \"Ho, what a joke!\" he said,\nand, to enforce it, he punched in the ribs the chamberlain who stood at\nhis right hand, and that so violently that the wretched man rolled down\nthe throne steps, taking care to laugh vigorously the whole time, until\nthe King roared, \"Be quiet, you idiot!\" when the chamberlain at once\ngrew silent.  Then the King said, somewhat more softly, \"I'll try very\nhard not to tremble; but if I'm very frightened you won't mind, I hope.\"\n\nAnd all the courtiers laughed so loud and long at the King's sarcasm,\nthat the Queen had some difficulty in making herself heard.\n\nThen she said, \"I am Eldrida, by the grace of God Queen of the\nNarrowlands and all the Isles.\"\n\nThe King really did seem a little startled.\n\n\"What in the world do you want here, then?\" he said, and his red eyes\nglowed again.\n\n\"I want something to eat,\" the Queen said.\n\nThe King seemed lost in thought.  \"Your Majesty shall have something\nif----\"\n\n\"If what?\" the Queen asked.\n\n\"If you will marry me,\" the King said in a tone that was meant to be\nsweet; but it rather reminded the Queen of a bull she had once heard\ngrumbling angrily.\n\nShe answered decidedly, \"I shan't do anything of the sort.\"\n\nThe King said, \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because you're a great deal too cruel and ugly,\" the Queen answered.\n\"What did you knock that poor man down for?  I can't bear that sort of\nwickedness.  And as for ugliness, why, you're worse than the Regent\nhimself, and he's the ugliest man I ever saw.\"\n\nThe King immediately became so convulsed with rage that he could only\nroar till the windows shook out of their frames and shattered on the\nground; and the Queen stopped her ears with her fingers, perfectly\naghast at the storm she had raised.\n\nAt last the King regained his powers of speech. \"If you don't marry me\nthis very day,\" he said, \"I'll have you beheaded, I'll have you hanged,\nI'll have you thrown from the top of the highest tower in the town and\nsmash you to pieces.\"\n\n\"You couldn't do anything of the sort,\" the Queen said calmly.\n\nThereupon the King's rage became quite frightful to see, especially for\nthe courtiers who were nearest him, for he rushed among them and began\nto kick them so that they flew into the air; indeed, it seemed as if the\nair was full of them.  But, in the middle of it, he suddenly made a dash\nat the Queen, and, before she could avoid him, had seized her in his\nfearful grasp.\n\n\"I'll show you if I can't dash you to pieces,\" he said, and in a minute\nhe had seized her and rushed out into the open air, carrying her like a\nkitten.\n\nUp to the little door at the foot of the palace tower he went and kicked\nit open so violently that it banged against the wall and quivered again\nwith the shock, and then round and round and round, and up and up and\nup, a little dark winding stair, until a sudden burst of light showed\nthat they were at the top.\n\n\"Now I'll show you,\" he muttered, and, shaking her violently he threw\nher over the side.\n\nBut she only dropped softly a short way, and then hovered up again till\nshe played in the air around the tower.\n\nThe astonishment of the King was now even greater than his former rage.\n\n\"I told you how it would be,\" the Queen said. \"And, if you'll take my\nadvice, you won't lose your temper so fearfully again.  It might really\nmake you ill.\"\n\nBut the King said nothing at all, being a little out of breath at having\ncome so quickly up the tower steps.  So the Queen flew gaily off again\nwithout saying \"Good-bye.\"\n\nBut down at the base of the tower the courtiers, discovering that the\nKing was nicely trapped, quietly shut the door and locked it.  Then they\ngave a sigh of relief, and left him till he died. They had been long\nlooking out for such an opportunity.\n\nThe Queen, however, knew nothing of that. She flew on for a time, being\nfar too excited to remember her hunger; but at last it came back to her\nwith redoubled force, and she determined to descend at the first house\nshe came to and try to get some food somehow.  But, by that time, the\ncountry had become sandy and dry, with only a few reeds bristling out\nover it here and there, and no signs of cultivation or even of houses.\n\n\"_Now_, whatever shall I do?\" she said to herself, as she flew along so\ndose to the ground that the wind of her flight made the sand flit about\nin little clouds.  \"I'm so awfully hungry and----  Why, there is some\nsort of a building!--at least it looks like one.\"\n\nAnd there, in a hollow among the sand-dunes, stood a funny little black\nerection, such as you might see upon a beach.\n\nSo the Queen alighted and walked towards the house.  In front of the\ndoor a cat was sitting--a black cat.  But not a magnificent creature\nwith a glossy coat that sits on the rug in front of the drawing-room\nfire and only drinks cream, deeming mice too vulgar.  This was a\nlong-limbed, little creature, that looked half-starved and seemed as if\nits proper occupation would be stealing along, very lanky and grim in\nthe moonlight, over the dunes to catch rabbits.\n\nSo the Queen stopped and looked at the cat, and the cat sat and looked\nat the Queen.\n\nThe black pupils of its yellow eyes dilated and diminished in a most\ncomposed manner.\n\n\"Poor pussy!\" the Queen said, and bent to scratch its neck.\n\nBut the cat took no kind of notice, so the Queen lifted the cat in her\narms, whereupon it gave vent to an awe-inspiring yell.\n\nThe door flew violently open, and the Queen, in alarm, let the cat go,\nand it dashed into the house behind an old woman, but such an ugly old\nwoman that the Queen was quite startled.\n\n\"Well, what do _you_ want?\" the old woman sod.\n\n\"Oh, I want something to eat,\" the Queen said.\n\nThe old woman gave a cunning leer.  \"Something to eat, my dear young\nlady,\" she said, \"Why, whatever made you expect to find anything to eat\nfit for the likes of you in such a place?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm not particular,\" the Queen said; \"only I'm very hungry.\"\n\n\"And what will you pay me?\" the old woman said.\n\n\"I--I can't pay you anything,\" the Queen said. \"You see, I haven't got\nany money.\"\n\nThe old woman smiled again, in a nasty way. \"Oh well,\" she said,  \"I'll\ngive you some food, if you'll do a day's work for it.\"\n\n\"What sort of work?\" the Queen said.  \"I'm not very clever at work, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Oh, quite easy work--just goose-herding.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh, I dare say I could do that.\"\n\nAnd the old woman answered, \"Oh, very well; come along in, then.\"\n\nAnd the Queen followed her into a dirty little room, with only a table\nand a long bench in it.\n\nBut there was a fine wood fire crackling on the hearth, and before it a\ngoose was slowly turning on the spit, so that it did not look quite as\ndismal as otherwise it might have done.\n\nThe Queen sat herself down at the table, and the old woman and the cat\nwere engaged in sitting on the hearth watching the fire.\n\nThey did not seem at all talkative, and so the Queen held her peace.\n\nAt last the old woman gave a grunt, for the goose was done, and so she\ngot up and found a plate and knife and fork, and put them before the\nQueen, with the goose on a dish and a large hunk of bread.\n\n\"There,\" she said, \"that's all I can give you.\"\n\nAnd so, although the food was by no meant as dainty as what she would\nhave had at home in the palace, the Queen was so remarkably hungry that\nshe made a much larger meal than she ever remembered to have made.\n\nAnd all the while the cat sat and stared at her, and seemed to grow\npositively bigger with staring so much, though when the Queen held out a\npiece of the goose to it, it merely sniffed contemptuously so that the\nQueen felt quite humiliated.\n\n\"Your cat doesn't seem to be very sociable,\" she said to the old woman.\n\nAnd the old woman answered, \"Why should he be?\" and took up a large twig\nbroom to sweep the hearth with.\n\nThat done, she leant upon it and regarded the Queen malevolently.\n\n\"Aren't you ever going to finish?\" she said.\n\nThe Queen answered, \"Well, I was rather hungry, you see; but I've\nfinished now.  There's no great hurry, is there?\"\n\n\"I want _my_ dinner,\" the old woman said, with such an emphasis on the\n\"_my_\" that the Queen was quite amused.\n\n\"Why, the goose is there; at least, there's some of it left.\"\n\n\"But _I_ don't like goose,\" the old woman said. Her manner was growing\nmore and more peculiar.\n\n\"Any one would think you were going to eat _me_,\" the Queen said; and\nthe cat licked its jaws.\n\n\"So I am,\" the old woman said, and her eyes gleamed.\n\nBut the Queen said, \"Nonsense!\"\n\n\"But it's not nonsense,\" the old woman said; and the cat began to grow\nvisibly.\n\n\"Well, but you didn't say anything about it before,\" the Queen said.  \"I\nonly agreed to herd your geese.\"\n\n\"But you won't be able to,\" the old woman said.\n\nThe Queen said, \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because they're wild ones.\"\n\nThe cat was growing larger and larger, till the Queen grew positively\nafraid.\n\n\"Well, at any rate, I'll have a try,\" she said.\n\nAnd the old woman answered, \"You may as well save yourself the trouble.\"\n\nBut the Queen insisted, and so they went outside, the old woman carrying\nher broom, for all the world like a crossing-sweeper.\n\nThe great cat rubbed against her skirt and licked its jaws.  It was\nabout the size of a lion now.\n\nThey came to the back of the house, and there the pen was--a cage\ncovered completely over, and filled with a multitude of geese.  The old\nwoman undid the door and threw it wide, and immediately, with a mighty\nrustle of wings filling the air, the geese swept out of the pen away\ninto the sky.\n\nThe old woman chuckled, and the cat crouched itself down as if preparing\nto spring, lashing its sides with its long tail.  But the Queen only\nsmiled, and started off straight into the air, faster even than the\ngeese had gone.\n\nThe old woman gave a shriek, and the cat a horrible yell, and then the\nQueen saw the one mounted upon her broom, and the other without any sort\nof steed at all, come flying after her.\n\nThen ensued a terrific race.  The Queen put up one hand to hold her\ncrown on, and the other to shield her eyes, and then flew as fast as she\ncould, with her hair streaming out upon the wind.\n\nRight through the startled geese she went, and the old woman and the cat\nfollowed after; but, fast as she went, they gained upon her, and at last\nthe cat was almost upon her.  In despair, she doubled back and almost\nran into the old woman, who aimed a furious blow at her with her broom;\nbut the Queen just dodged it, and it lighted full in the face of the\ncat, and, locked fast together, the cat and the old woman whirled to the\nground.\n\nThey were both of them too enraged to inquire who was who, and such a\nfurious battle raged that the sand they threw up completely hid the\nearth from view for miles around.\n\nThe Queen, however, after she had recovered her breath, hovered over the\nspot to see what would happen.\n\nAll of a sudden there was a loud explosion, and a column of blue flame\nshot up.\n\n\"Now what has happened?\" the Queen thought to herself, and prepared to\nfly off at full speed. But the cloud of sand sailed quietly off down the\nwind, and, save for a deep hole, there remained no trace of the old\nwoman and her cat.\n\nJust at that moment the Queen heard a mighty rustling of wings, and,\nlooking up, saw the great herd of wild geese swirling round and round\nher head.\n\n\"Dear me!\" the Queen said to herself, \"I wonder if I could talk to them.\nPerhaps they will understand bat's language.\"\n\nNow, it is a rather difficult thing to give you a good idea of what the\nbat's language is like, because, although one may produce a fairly good\nimitation by rubbing two corks together, or by blowing through a double\nbutton, it doesn't mean any more in bat's language than \"Huckery\nhickyhoo\" would in ours, if any one were foolish enough to produce such\nsounds.\n\nSuffice it, then, to say that the Queen said in the bat's language, \"Oh,\ncome, that's a good thing!\"\n\nAnd the geese answered, \"Yes, isn't it scrumptious?\"\n\nYou see, geese are rather vulgar kinds of fowls, and so they speak a\nvulgar language--about as different from the aristocratic bat's as a\nLondon costermonger's is from that of a well-brought-up young person.\nSo that, if you can imagine a gander and a bat proposing each to the\nlady of his choice, the goose would say, \"'Lizer, be my disy;\" whereas\nthe bat would lay one claw upon its velvet coat over its heart and\nbegin, \"Miss Elizabeth,\" or \"Miss Vespertilio,\"--for that is the bat's\nsurname--\"if the devotion of a lifetime can atone for----\" and so on, in\nthe most elegant of phrases.\n\nAt any rate, the geese understood the Queen, and the Queen understood\nthe geese, which is the main thing.\n\n\"Now what shall I do?\" the Queen said\n\nAnd the geese consulted among themselves. Then an elderly gander spoke\nup for the rest.\n\n\"Ma'am,\" he said, or rather hissed, \"you have saved our lives.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"I'm sure I'm very glad.\"\n\nThe poor gander blushed, not being used to speaking in public; but he\nbegan again bravely.\n\n\"Ma'am, seeing as how you're saved our lives, we've made up our minds to\nbe your faithful servants, and to go where you go, and do what you do.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's very good of you,\" the Queen said, not knowing exactly\nwhether to be glad or sorry.  \"But I don't quite know where I am going;\nthough, as it's getting late in the day, I think I'd better be moving\non.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go back to the cottage?\" the old gander said.  \"There'll\nbe no one there to bother you now.\"\n\n\"It's rather a good idea,\" the Queen said. \"I've a good mind to.\"\n\n\"Do,\" the geese said.  \"There's a nice river near by.\"\n\nAnd, although the latter inducement was inconsiderable, the Queen did as\nshe was asked. In their mad career they had come so great a distance\nthat it was close on nightfall before they reached the cottage again.\n\nThere everything was quiet and as they had left it, only the fire had\nalmost died away on the hearth.\n\nSo the Queen, who rather disliked the darkness, threw one or two turfs\non it and blew it up well with the bellows, so that the light glowed and\ndanced cheerfully on the farthest wall of the cottage.\n\nSo the Queen sat and looked at the leaping flames, and her shadow danced\nlarge upon the walls.  But outside, on the dunes before the door, the\ngeese were all asleep, with their heads under their wings.  Their\nshadows did not move in the moonlight.  Only the old gander remained as\na sentinel, marching up and down before the door. No sentry was ever\nmore perfect in his goose-step.\n\nSo, when a fit of nervousness came over the Queen, and she went to look\nout at the door for fear the old woman and her cat should return, she\nfelt quite reassured.\n\n\"It was we who saved the capitol,\" the old gander said; \"so you're quite\nsafe.\"\n\nAnd the remembrance soothed the Queen, so that she went and lay down on\nthe couch of dried fern that served for a bed, and soon was fast asleep.\n\nAfter all, the geese were some companionship, and it was better to sleep\nquietly on the bracken-couch than to glide along in a ghostly way under\nthe moon, with no company but one's shadow on the fields far, far down\nbelow.\n\nSo the Queen slept until morning, and the first sound that awakened her\nwas the quacking of the geese, a really tremendous noise.  The sun was\njust up.  The Queen sprang up, too, and dressed herself.  There was a\npail in the hut, and, at no great distance, a well.  So thither she\nwent, and, drawing a pail of water, washed herself well in it.  It was\ndelightfully cold and refreshing.\n\nThe geese saluted her with a general chorus of good mornings and good\nwishes, for which the Queen thanked them.\n\nSo, having made herself comfortable, she began to feel not a little\nhungry, as did the geese. After looking about in the hut, she discovered\nthe cellar door, and, opening it, she went down, not without being a\nlittle afraid that it might be full of old women or black cats.  She\nfound no trace of either, but merely quite a lot of bread and cheese,\nand hard biscuits, and a sack of corn, which was evidently intended for\nthe geese.\n\nSo she filled a measure with it and threw it to them, and gave them a\ngreat pan of water from the well, after which she made a frugal\nbreakfast off a biscuit and an egg which one of the geese had laid.\n\nThen the geese wanted to set forth for the river, and asked the Queen to\ncome with them, which she did willingly enough, after she had tidied the\nhouse a little and had made up the fire so that it might not quite go\nout.\n\nThen gaily they trooped off over the sand-dunes towards the river, the\ngeese marching gravely in line; only the old grey gander went beside the\nQueen and talked to her.\n\nJust where the river ran was a green meadow with several pools of water\nin it.  And the meadow was perfectly alive with birds; everywhere their\nwings seemed to be flapping and fluttering and showing the whites\nunderneath them.\n\nThey eyed the Queen with something like alarm, but the old grey gander\nmade a speech in which he referred to the Queen as their preserver and\nfriend; and the Queen said that, far from wishing to do them any harm,\nshe was very fond of birds.\n\nAnd so the flapping of wings went on again, and the sun shone down upon\nthe gay meadow. But the geese led the Queen to the river's edge, and\nthere she sat down on the bank beneath a willow tree, whilst they jumped\nin and revelled in the clear water.\n\nSo the sun rose higher and higher, and the shade of the tree grew more\nand more grateful to the Queen, and the geese came out of the river and\narranged themselves for a nap on the grass around her.\n\nDuring the sun's height, too, all the other birds were more silent; it\nwas too hot for violent exercise.\n\nSo the river gurgled among the rushes, and they rustled and bent their\nheads, and the willow leaves forgot to tremble for want of a breeze. And\nthe great, placid flow of the river was without a dimple on its face,\nsave when a fish sprang gleaming out after a low-flying midge.\n\nSo the Queen felt happy and contented, and she, too, dozed off into a\nlittle nap, whilst the woolly clouds slowly sailed across the blue\nheaven.\n\nBut towards evening the birds all woke up; the peewits flew off in a\nflock to the marshy flats down the river, and the snipe whirred away to\nthe mud-banks, and the geese arose and cropped the greensward with their\nbills.\n\nAnd then, towards sunset, they all rose in the air, and the Queen with\nthem, and went whirling round in great clouds of rustling pinions, dyed\nred in the sunset, geese and peewits, and snipe and herons, all wheeling\nabout in sheer delight of life; until, when the sun was almost down, the\ngeese, with a great cry of farewell, flew off through the gloaming with\nthe Queen towards the hut.\n\nAnd there she once more blew up the fire for company, whilst the geese\noutside slept calmly. And so she went to bed again.\n\nThus it fell about that the Queen remained quite a long time in the hut\nwith the geese for her companions.\n\nThe days she spent down where the river whispered to the rushes.  When\nthe sun was very hot, she would bathe in the stream and lie among the\nrushes; and, having cut a pipe, she played upon it in tune with the\ngurgle of the river.\n\nThen the geese and the gulls and the peewits and the gaunt grey herons\nwould gather round and listen attentively--so attentively that if one of\nthe gulls made a slight rustling in changing legs, he always got a good\npeck for disturbing them.  And the great herons buried their bills in\nthe feathers of their breasts and shut their eyes, and did not move even\nwhen the frogs crept out of the water and listened, with their\ngold-rimmed eyes all agog, and their yellow throats palpitating.\n\nThen when she had finished, the herons snapped their bills; and the\ngulls cried, \"Kee-ah;\" and the peewits, \"Peewit;\" and the geese hissed,\nwith their necks stretched out--but that too signified applause.\n\nAs for the frogs, they made haste to spring with a plop into the rushes,\nwithout any applause at all; but that was because the herons had opened\ntheir eyes and were stalking towards them.\n\nSo the Queen was very much beloved in the bird-meadow, and the gulls\nwould come out of the shining pools to greet her when she came in the\nfreshness of the morning, and the herons would lay fish at her feet, and\nthe peewits would perch upon her shoulder and fly round her head, and\nthe whirr of wings was everywhere.  But the geese were her guard of\nhonour.\n\nOne morning before they set out for the bird-meadow, whilst the Queen\nwas engaged in tidying up the hut, the geese suddenly set up a most\nterrible hissing and quacking.\n\n\"Dear me!\" the Queen said, \"there'll be a terrible rain-storm soon.\"\n\nBut at that moment the old grey gander came running excitedly into the\nhut.\n\n\"There's a man--two men--three men coming,\" he said, quite out of\nbreath.\n\nThe Queen said, \"Good gracious! and my hair in such a state!\"\n\nBut she went to the door all the same.\n\nThere, sure enough, she saw three men coming one after the other.  The\nfirst two were quite near, but the third was a great way off, though he\nappeared to hop along over the dunes in a most remarkable manner.  He\nseemed to be habited in a suit of black, and carried a black bag; but he\nwas still a great way off, and the Queen turned her attention to the\nother two, who were now quite close to her.\n\nThe first one was a handsome, very bronzed young man, in a suit of\nshining armour, that, to the Queen's critical eyes, did not seem to fit\nhim to perfection; whilst the second, a delicate-looking, haughty youth,\nwith a very fair skin, was habited in a shepherd's coarse garments, and\ncarried a crook and a sling at his side.\n\nThe man in armour bowed a clumsy sort of bow and said--\n\n\"Good morning;\" whilst the shepherd bowed in a most courteous and\nelegant manner.\n\n\"Good morning, fair madam.  Is Mrs. Hexer at home?\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"No, there's no one of that name living here.\"\n\n\"Dear me,\" the man in armour said, \"how annoying!  I am the--the Prince\nof Kamschkatka, and this is a shepherd of Pendleton.\"  He said it in a\ngreat hurry, just as you might say a newly learned lesson.\n\nBut the shepherd of Pendleton said, \"Ah, perhaps Mrs. Hexer does not\nlive here.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"No, she doesn't; I live here.\"\n\n\"What, _alone_!\" they both said.\n\nAnd the Queen answered, \"No; I live with my geese.\"\n\nThe shepherd said, \"Oh, then perhaps you could tell us where Mrs. Hexer\n_does_ live.\"\n\n\"I've never heard of her,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"_What_! never heard of Mrs. Hexer?\" they both said.\n\n\"The famous witch who has the well of the Elixir of Life,\" the prince\nsaid.\n\nBut the shepherd said, \"Of lore.\"\n\nThe mention of \"witch\" brought something to the Queen's mind.\n\n\"There used to be a horrible old woman who lived here with a great black\ncat,\" she said.  \"Perhaps _she_ was Mrs. Hexer; but she disappeared some\ntime ago.\"\n\n\"That must have been her,\" the prince said.\n\nAnd the shepherd continued, \"Ah, if you would let us sit for a while on\nthe coping of your well, or even give us a draught of its water, we\nshould be infinitely obliged to you.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh, you're very welcome,\" and turned into the house to\nget her bucket, when she was astonished to see a coal-black thing with\nhorns and a long tail sitting in the very middle of her fire.\n\nShe rubbed her eyes in surprise, and when she looked again there was\nonly a gentleman, clad in an elegant suit of black, with his coal-black\nhair carefully parted in the middle and falling in sinuous lines on\neither side of his forehead.  He held his hat in one hand, and in the\nother a black bag and long narrow book.\n\n\"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Hexer,\" he said. \"You will excuse my liberty;\nbut I saw you were agreeably engaged, and so I took the opportunity of\nslipping in by the back way.\"\n\n\"I didn't know there was a back way,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"The chimney, I should have said, Mrs. Hexer,\" the gentleman said.\n\n\"But I'm not Mrs. Hexer,\" the Queen replied.\n\n\"No, indeed,\" the gentleman answered.  \"The elixir has had a most\nremarkable success in your case.  A photograph of you now would be a\nmost valuable advertisement--before taking and after.  I suppose you\nhaven't got one of your former state?\"\n\n\"But I tell you I'm not Mrs. Hexer,\" the Queen said.\n\nWhereupon the gentleman became a shade more serious.\n\n\"You have exactly five minutes more life,\" he said, after having\nconsulted one of those keyless watches that never seem to have had\nenough winding.  He laid down his hat and bag, and looked carefully in\nhis book.  \"Is this not your signature?\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Good gracious, no; and I'm not going to sign anything\nmore.\"\n\n\"You've signed quite enough in this,\" the gentleman said.\n\n\"But I tell you I never signed it,\" the Queen replied.\n\n\"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Hexer,\" the gentleman said.  \"Come, your time is\nnearly at hand.\"\n\n\"It's nothing of the sort,\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the gentleman bowed.  \"You know best, Mrs. Hexer,\" he said.\n\"There's one more minute.\"\n\nThe Queen waited to see what would happen.\n\nThe seconds passed by, and the Queen's heart beat.  Then the gentleman\ntore the page out of his book, at the dotted line, and put the book in\nthe bag.\n\n\"By-the-bye,\" he said, \"what's become of the cat?\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"It disappeared with the witch.\"\n\nThe gentleman looked at his watch.  \"Time's up, Mrs. Hexer,\" he said, as\nhe put it back in his pocket.  \"By virtue of this document, signed by\nyour blood----\"\n\n\"It isn't my blood,\" the Queen said, when, all of a sudden, the hut\nvanished away over her head, and she found herself standing in the open\nair among the sand-dunes, amid a large crowd of people; whilst the two\nmen, shepherd and prince, were lying tumbled on the sand, for the well\non which they had been seated had disappeared.\n\nBut the most astonishing thing was what happened to the gentleman in\nblack, for he suddenly changed into a black demon and advanced roaring\ntowards her, until something seemed to stop him, and he changed just as\nsuddenly back into the gentleman that he had been before.\n\n\"I see there has been some mistake,\" he said, bowing and placing his\nhand upon his heart. Then he knelt upon the ground.  \"Be mine! be mine!\"\nhe said.  \"Oh, most adorable maiden, be mine; marry me, and I will\nreform; I'll give up smoking; I'll never swear; I'll--I'll go to\nchurch--only marry me.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" the Queen said.  \"Don't be ridiculous and kneel; I never let\nthe Regents kneel.\"\n\n\"You can marry me--you can,\" the gentleman said.  \"I can marry while I'm\non earth.  Of course, down below it's different.  But I'll keep regular\nhours; I'll be most respectable--I will, if you'll only marry me.\"\n\n\"I tell you I can't,\" the Queen said; \"I don't know what I've done to\nmake you go on in this ridiculous way.\"\n\n\"It's the elixir.  You've been drinking it, you know,\" the demon\ngentleman said; \"and so I can't help it.  But if you won't marry me,\nmadam, perhaps we can do a little business in my line. I pride myself\nthat my system is the very best--the seven years' purchase system, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"I don't understand you at all,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"Why, it's very simple.  You give me what I want, and I will re-erect\nfor you the desirable family residence that stood here, with all its\nadvantages--the delightfully secluded spot, the landscape, the well of\npure water, and the fowl-house with its stock of geese.  Come, let me\nfill you up a form.\"\n\n\"Yes, but what do I have to do for it?\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd he answered, \"Oh, a mere trifle--only a formality.\"\n\n\"But what _is_ it?\"\n\n\"Oh, you only give me your soul--it's nothing at all.\"\n\n\"_My soul!_\" the Queen said.  \"Certainly not.\"\n\n\"But I'll make you rich,\" the gentleman said.\n\n\"I'm quite rich enough already,\" the Queen answered.\n\n\"I'll make you powerful--make you a great queen.\"\n\n\"I'm one already, thanks,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"I'll give you a broom that you can fly on,\" the gentleman remarked.\n\n\"I can fly without a broom,\" the Queen said.\n\n\"I'll let you drink the elixir,\" he went on.\n\n\"I've had quite enough already,\" the Queen said.\n\nThe demon gnashed his teeth.  \"Then you won't trade?\" he said.\n\n\"Certainly _not_,\" the Queen answered.\n\n\"And you won't marry me?\"\n\n\"_Certainly_ not!\" the Queen said.\n\nThere was blue flame, and a great pillar of sand shot up into the air.\nThe wind carried it slowly away--the gentleman in black had disappeared.\n\n\"Come, that's something!\" the Queen said, with a sigh of relief, when\nher eye fell suddenly on the crowd of people that were standing looking\nat her. They were mostly standing on one leg.  \"Why, whoever are you?\"\nthe said.\n\nAnd a grey-haired man answered, \"We are--that is, we were--the geese.\n_I_ am the oldest of them, and, as such, let me remind you that a ripe\nman is by far the best one to marry.  Oh, maiden, marry _me_!\"\n\nBut a perfect storm of voices went up.  \"No; marry me!  I'm----\"\n\nBut the Queen held up her hand to command silence.\n\n\"Don't make such a fearful noise.  I can't even hear myself think.  I'm\nnot going to marry any of you, though you were very nice, dear geese,\nand I was very fond of you.\"\n\n\"No; the lady is going to marry me!\" a voice said, and the man in\nshepherd's clothes stept forth.\n\n\"No, marry me!\" the man in armour said.\n\n\"I'm a prince.  I will make you a princess,\" the man in shepherd's\nclothes said.\n\n\"I'm a shepherd,\" the man dressed like a prince said.  \"A shepherd is a\nfar better match for a goose-girl than a prince is.\"\n\n\"But why were either of you so deceitful?\" the Queen said.  \"Because\nit's so ridiculous. You don't look like a shepherd, prince--your skin is\nmuch too fair; and you are much too brawny to be a prince, shepherd.\"\n\n\"Well, I thought it was not quite respectable for a prince to be seen\nvisiting a witch, and so I changed clothes with the shepherd here.\"\n\n\"And I changed clothes with the prince because I had seen you from afar,\nand had loved you; and because I thought a prince would have seemed more\nsplendid than a common shepherd.\"\n\n\"But you were both wrong to try to deceive me,\" the Queen said.  \"As for\nyou, prince, I will not marry you to be made a princess, for I am a\nQueen already; and for you, shepherd, I will not marry you to become a\nshepherdess, for I am goose-girl already, though my flock has turned\nback from its goose-shape again.  But how did you become geese, anyhow?\"\nshe asked of them.\n\nAnd he who had been the old grey gander answered, \"The witch turned us\ninto it when we came to ask for the Elixir of Love.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" the Queen said.  \"Does love make such geese of people?\"\n\nAnd the shepherd in prince's clothing said, \"I'm afraid it does.\"\n\n\"You see, it was as I said,\" the old grey gander said; \"those young men\nare all fools.  You had much better marry me.\"\n\nHe had no sooner said the words than a perfect whirlwind of shouts\narose.\n\n\"Marry me!\" \"No, marry me!\" \"Me!\" \"Me!\" \"Me!\"\n\nThe Queen put her fingers to her ears.  \"If you don't be quiet I'll fly\naway altogether,\" she said.\n\nBut it produced no effect at all; the sound of voices went on just like\nthe sound of surf on a pebbly shore.\n\n\"Oh, I can't stand it,\" the Queen said.  \"And to think that it is to go\non like this for ever and ever, and all because of this horrible elixir!\nI shall fly right away from it.\"\n\nAnd she quietly rose and sailed away in the air, and the last she saw of\nthe geese was that they were feebly trying to fly after her, waving\ntheir arms frantically as if they had been wings.\n\nThe Queen flew straight up into the air, and she had reached a dizzy\nheight before she thought of what she was doing.\n\nTo tell the truth, she was a little sorrowful at the thought of leaving\nthe geese; for, with the exception of the old bat, they had been almost\nher only friends.\n\n\"I wish they _could_ have flown with me,\" she said to herself.  \"But,\ngood gracious, how high I am getting!  I shall be losing my way.  Why,\nthe earth looks quite small and quite like a map.\"\n\nAnd so it did.  Then an idea struck the Queen.\n\n\"Suppose I were to fly right up to the sun; what fun it would be!\"\n\nAnd, since the idea had come into her bead, she determined to make the\nattempt.\n\nUp, up she flew, higher and ever higher, till all the air around was\nfull of strange harmonies, as though ten thousand AEolian harps were\nbeing breathed upon in accord by a great wind.  And all around her, too,\nthe planets whirred and spun and the stars gleamed, and now and again\nshe would pass through mists of luminousness and of gleaming hail.\n\nUp, up she went till she came where there was a great bow of iridescent\ncolours, and rising from it a great array of white steps, that ran up,\nup, so high that it took away her breath to look upon them.  At the top\nwas a great glare of light.\n\nThe Queen felt tired and a little bewildered; it seemed as if her wings\nwould bear her no longer or, at least, no higher.\n\nUpon the many-coloured road she stood and looked up the great white way.\nA voice spoke to her like a great rushing of wind.\n\n\"Maiden,\" it said, \"so far and no further.\"\n\nAnd a feeling akin to fear came over her; but not fear, for she knew not\nwhat guilt was.\n\nAnd the voice spoke again.  \"Go down this bow back to the earth, and do\nthe work that is to be done by you.  Be of use to your fellows.\"\n\nAnd the Queen turned and went her way down the great road.  The air was\nfull of voices, glad voices, such that the Queen had never heard\nbefore--full of a joy that made her heart leap to hear.\n\nBut she could see no one.\n\nTill at last she came back to the green earth, late in the afternoon.\n\nFor a moment, above her, she could see the great span of the rainbow,\nand then it vanished into the clear air, and the Queen was alone in the\nlittle valley.  There it was already dusk, though the sky above the long\ndown before her was still golden with the rays of the sun that had sunk\nbehind it.\n\nThere was a little rill running along the valley, and the Queen knelt\ndown and drank of its brimfulness, taking the water up in her hand.  It\nwas very sweet and cool, and the Queen felt happy to be back on the\nearth again.\n\n\"After all,\" she said to herself; as she sat herself down in the soft,\ncool grass, that tickled her hands--\"after all, it's something to have\nfirm ground under one; one feels just a _little_ lonely up there, quite\naway from everything except shooting stars, and the world is a dear old\nplace in the twilight like this.\"\n\nUp above the hill-top she saw a man's head appear, together with a pair\nof horses and a plough.  Quite plainly she could hear the bridle\ntrappings' rattle and click, and the heavy breathing of the horses in\nthe evening stillness.\n\nIt was all so quiet and natural that she did not feel at all surprised.\n\nJust at the brow of the hill, standing out black against the light, the\nman halted, and, lifting the plough, turned his team of horses round and\nset off down the new furrow.\n\nWith very little hesitation, the Queen went up the hill towards the spot\nfrom which he had disappeared, and in a very short time she had reached\nthe brow and stood looking down the furrows.  The western sky was still\na blaze of glory, and the yellow light gleamed along the ridge of\nshining earth that the plough turned up, and on the steel of the\nploughshare.  The ploughman was singing a song, and his voice came\nmellowly along over the sunlit stubble that was not yet ploughed up.\n\n\"I wonder, now, if it will be safe for me to speak to him, or if he'll\nfall in love with me as soon as he sees me? because it's really too much\nof a nuisance.\"\n\nHowever, she went lightly across the stubble towards him.  He was just\nturning the plough as she approached, and he did not seem to notice her.\n\n\"Now, lads,\" he said to the horses, \"the last lap for this evening.\"\n\nAnd the horses whinnied softly and set their necks to the collar.\n\n\"Can I be of any use to you?\" the Queen said.\n\nThe man stopped his team for a moment, and looked towards her.  Against\nthe glow of the sky she could not make out his face; but he seemed to\nsmile.\n\n\"No, friend,\" he said.  \"I have all but finished my day's work; but, if\nyou will lead the horses up the furrow, they may go straighter than I\ncan drive them.\"\n\nSo the Queen went to the horses' heads, and took one of them by the\nbridle, and the great beasts stretched to the work.  And the Queen felt\na new happiness come over her, at the thought that she was of use in the\nworld.\n\nThe sun set as they came to the edge of the field.  The plougher\nstretched his arms abroad, and then came to the horses' heads.\n\n\"Thank you, friend,\" he said to the Queen. He did not look at her, but\nkept his eyes downcast on the ground with a strangely distant appearance\nin them.  \"Will you not come home and sup with us?  It is hardly a\nhundred yards to the farm, and the nearest place to here is several\nmiles onwards.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Thank you.  I should be very glad; but--but--\" as the\nthought struck her, \"I shan't be able to pay you, you know.\"\n\nThe ploughman laughed.  \"Now I see you are a stranger,\" he said.  \"But\nyet I have seldom had strangers pass here that offered to help me.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Yes, but it is so nice to be of use to any one;\" and\nseeing that he was engaged in unbuckling the horse from the plough on\nthe right side, she did as much for the one on the left.\n\nThe ploughman said, \"Now, can you ride?\"\n\n\"Well, I've never tried, but I dare say I could if they didn't go _too_\nfast.\"\n\n\"No, I don't think they'll go fast,\" he said. \"Here, let me lift you on.\nThere, catch hold of the horns of the collar.\"\n\nAnd in a moment the Queen was seated sideways on the great horse.  The\nploughman made his way to the horse's head and led it down the valley\nagain.  The other horse went quietly along by the side of them.\n\n\"How delicious everything looks in the owl-light!\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the ploughman sighed.  \"I--I can't see it.\"  he said.  \"I can't see\nanything.  I'm blind.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Blind!  Why, I should never have known it.  You are as\nskilful as any one else.\"\n\nThe ploughman answered, \"Oh yes, I can manage pretty well because I'm\nused to it, and there are many ways of managing things; but it is an\naffliction.\"\n\nThe horses went carefully down the hill, and in a little space they had\nreached the valley whence the Queen had started.  It was now quite dark\nthere, and the harvest moon had not yet arisen, but at no great distance\nfrom them the Queen could see a light winking.\n\nSo the horses plodded along, stopping now and again to crop a mouthful\nof grass or drink a draught from the tinkling rill, whose sound had\ngrown loud in the twilight silence.  In a very short while they had come\nto where a little farmhouse lay in the bottom of the valley among trees,\nthat looked black in the starlight.\n\nThe ploughman called, \"Mother, I'm bringing a visitor.\"\n\nAnd a little old woman came to the door. \"Welcome!\" she said, and added,\n\"My dear,\" when the Queen came into sight in the light that fell through\nthe open door.\n\nThe Queen slipped down from the horse and went into the door with the\nlittle old woman, whilst the ploughman disappeared with the horses.\n\n\"She really is a dear little old woman,\" the Queen said to\nherself--\"very different from old Mrs. Hexer.\"\n\nAnd so indeed she was--quite a little woman in comparison with her\nstalwart son, with white hair and a rosy face and eyes not at all\nage-dimmed, but blue as the cornflower or as a summer sky, and looking,\nlike a child's, so gentle that a hard word would make them wince.\n\nShe put a chair ready for the Queen by the fireside, and then, on the\nwhite wood table, set out forks and knives for her.\n\n\"You must be tired,\" she said kindly; \"but we go to bed soon after\nsupper, and so you will have a good rest.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Yes, I am a little tired; and it is very kind of you to\nlet me stop.\"\n\nThe little old woman looked at her with an odd, amused look in her\ngentle eyes.\n\n\"Now I see you are a stranger,\" she said\n\n\"Yes, I come from a long way off,\" the Queen said.  \"At least I suppose\nit is a great way off, for it has taken me a long time to get here.\"\n\nAt that moment the ploughman came in, with the heavy step of a tired\nman.\n\n\"Mother, mother!\" he said gaily; \"I'm hungry.\"\n\n\"Son, son,\" she answered, \"I am glad to hear it.  There will be plenty.\"\n\nAnd so the supper was made ready, and heartily glad the Queen was, for\nshe was as hungry as the ploughman.\n\nAnd they had the whitest of floury potatoes, in the whitest of white\nwooden bowls, and the sweetest of new milk, and the clearest of honey\noverrunning the comb, and junket laid on rushes, and plums, and apples,\nand apricots.  And be certain that the Queen enjoyed it.\n\nAnd, when it was finished, they drew their chairs round the fire, and\nthe ploughman said, addressing the Queen--\n\n\"Now, friend, since you have travelled far, tell us something of what\nmay have befallen you on the way, for we are such stay-at-home folk\nhere, that we know little of the world around.  But perhaps you are\ntired and would rather go to bed.\"\n\nBut the Queen said, \"Oh no, I am very well rested now, and I will gladly\ntell you my story--only first tell me where I am.\"\n\n\"This is the farm of Woodward, from which we take our names, my mother\nand I, and we are some ten miles from the Narrow Seas.\"\n\n\"But what is the land called, and who rules it?\" the Queen said.\n\nThe ploughman laughed.  \"Why, it is called the land of the Happy Folk;\nand as for who rules it, why, just nobody, because it gets along very\nwell as it is.\"\n\nThe Queen leant back in the great chair they had given her.  She rubbed\nher chin reflectively and looked at the fire.\n\n\"The Regent told me that a country couldn't possibly exist without a\nKing or Queen,\" she said.\n\n\"Who is the Regent?\" the ploughman said. He too kept his face to the\nfire that he could not see.\n\n\"Oh, well, he's just the Regent of my kingdom. But I forgot you didn't\nknow.  I am Eldrida, Queen of the Narrowlands and all the Isles.\"\n\nThe little old woman looked at her interestedly.\n\nAnd the ploughman said, \"After all, you're not so _very_ far from your\nhome; because one can see the coast of it quite plainly on a clear day\nfrom our shore, so they say.\"\n\n\"Why, then you must have quite a number of people from there?\" the Queen\nsaid.\n\nBut the ploughman answered, \"No, hardly ever any one, because the seas\nrun so swiftly through the straights that no boat can live in them--so\npeople would have to come a long way round by land.  Besides, they've\ngot everything that we've got, so what could they want here?\" the\nploughman said, and added slily, \"all except one thing, that is.\"\n\n\"Why, what is that?\" the Queen asked.\n\nAnd the ploughman answered, \"Why, the Queen, of course; because we have\ngot her.\"\n\nBut the little old woman held her hand to shield her eyes from the\nfire's blaze, and looked across at the Queen.\n\n\"I shouldn't think it was a very nice country to live in,\" she said.\n\nThe Queen asked, \"Why?\"\n\n\"Well, one evening when we were down by the sea, we saw the whole sky\nlit up over there, and, later, we heard from a traveller, that the\npeople had set fire to the town when they were fighting about who was to\nbe Regent.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm afraid they are rather fond of doing that; but I didn't know\nanything about it.\"\n\n\"How was that?\" the ploughman said.\n\nAnd in reply, the Queen told them her story, to which they listened very\nattentively, and hardly interrupted at all to ask questions.\n\nAnd so, it being finished, the little old woman took the Queen up to bed\nin a little room under the eaves, and, bidding her a kind good night,\nleft her.\n\nThe Queen's window looked out down the valley, and she could, as she\nundressed, see the moon shining placidly along it, gleaming on the dew\nmist, and glancing here and there on the waters of the little stream\nwhere its zigzag course caught the light.\n\nThere was never a sound save the tinkle of the brook or the dull noise\nof a horse that moved its feet in the stable.\n\nSo the Queen fell asleep, and did not awaken till the sun was high in\nthe sky.\n\nShe rubbed her eyes and could not quite make out where she was at first.\nShe missed the noise of the geese, to which she had been used to awaken.\nBut gradually it all came back to her, and for a while she lay and\nwatched the roses that were peeping in at the window and nodding in the\nmorning breeze.\n\n\"Come, this will never do!\" the Queen said to herself.  \"Whatever will\nthey think of me?\"  So she arose from between the warm, clean sheets,\nand, having dressed herself, went downstairs. There she found the little\nold woman busy in the kitchen.\n\n\"Good morning, my dear,\" she said.\n\nAnd the Queen answered, \"Good morning, mother.\"\n\nAnd the little old woman's eyes smiled her pleasure.  \"I didn't wish to\nwake you,\" she said, \"you seemed so tired last night.  My son has gone\noff to his ploughing; but you will see him as you pass the hill, and he\nwill guide you a little on your way, if you have to go further.\"  The\nlittle old woman's eyes looked quite wistful.  \"We wish you would stay a\nlittle while with us; we should like it so much.\"\n\n\"Why, of course I will,\" the Queen said; \"that is, if I can be of any\nuse to you.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, you can be of use,\" the little old woman said.  \"But it is such\na pleasure for us to have guests, for we like to talk with them, and we\nlike to please them as much as may be.  But here is your breakfast; you\nmust be quite hungry. And afterwards--after to-day, that is--my son will\nshow you all about the farm.  Only to-day he wants to finish his\nploughing, and I am too old to go very far up the hills.\"\n\n\"It is wonderful how your son manages to work as he does,\" the Queen\nsaid.\n\nAnd the little old woman's eyes looked proud and happy.\n\n\"He has lived all his life here, you see When he was quite a baby a\nflash of lightning blinded him; but now he knows his way everywhere\nabout, and he can do almost all the farm-work. Sometimes he has a boy to\nhelp him; but just now, they're harvesting at our neighbour's, and the\nboy has gone down to help.  But it makes my son rather slow in his\nploughing, for he has to guide himself by feeling with his feet the last\nfurrow he has made.\"\n\n\"Oh, I could lead the horses for him,\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the mother answered, \"Yes, do, my dear; and you can take your dinner\nout with you.  His dog always fetches his for him.\"\n\nSo the Queen finished her breakfast, and then set out along the valley\ntowards the ploughing place.\n\nBy daylight she could see better how pleasant a place the valley was,\nvery green in the bottom, with here and there a pollard willow by the\nstream, and here and there linen laid out to bleach on the grass.  But\nthe steep hills that shut it in were purple with heather, and brown with\nbracken, and, now and then, a lonely thorn tree. Behind her was the\nlittle white cottage, with a cluster of trees drawn down around it, and\nwith the ducks and turkeys and chickens crowding the valley in front of\nit.  Indeed, every now and then along the valley a lily-white duck would\npop its golden-billed head out of the reeds and meadow-sweet of the\nstream to look at her as she passed along.\n\nSo she came to the hill where the valley made a sharp turn, and on the\ntop of which she could see the ploughman.  Up it she climbed through the\nheather, and speedily reached him.\n\n\"I've come to lead the horses for you,\" she said.\n\nAnd he looked towards her and smiled.\n\n\"That's right,\" he said.  \"Then you're not going away just yet.  It's\nbetter here than being shut up in a palace garden, with no one but a bat\nto talk to.\"\n\n\"It is,\" the Queen said simply.\n\nSo, through the autumn day, she led the horses up and down the furrows,\nwhilst be drove the share deep into the ground.\n\nAnd through the blue sky, up the wind and down the wind, came the crows\nand starlings to feed on the worms that the plough turned up. So, late\nin the afternoon, they had come as far as he meant to go.\n\n\"Further down the hill,\" he said, \"the wheat would catch the north wind.\nSo that's enough for to-day, Queen Eldrida.\"\n\n\"Don't call me _Queen_ Eldrida, because, if I am a queen, I'm not your\nqueen.  Just call me Eldrida.\"\n\n\"One name's as good as another,\" he said, as he slipped on his coat.\n\"Now let's go home, and I'll show you a little of the valley behind the\nhouse.\"\n\nSo the Queen stayed for a while with them, and did as they did.  And the\nblind man led her up the hills, and on the hilltops called the sheep,\nand from all sides they came to his call.\n\nAnd the Queen halved his work for him, and did those things which his\nwant of sight prevented his doing.\n\nSometimes she stayed to help the little mother indoors, but, on the\nwhole, she preferred being out in the open air with the blind man.\n\nThen came the beginning of winter, and she went with him up the\nhillsides, and in among the storms to fold the sheep, and drive the\ncattle home to the byres.\n\nAnd then midwinter, when, in the morning, they had to set to work by\nlanthorn light that cast a luminous yellow circle round them upon the\nsnow, and made their great shadows dance strangely.\n\nThen the snows swept down into the valley and covered everything up\nbeneath the soft white waves, so that, when they wanted to go out, they\nhad to get through one of the roof-windows, for the door was all covered\nup.  Then indeed it was very cold work getting about, and the Queen had\nalways to guide the blind man, because the had covered all his familiar\nlandmarks.  The made it very hard walking, too, and put the Queen quite\nout of breath, but he sang quite lustily a song--\n\n      \"'Cold hands, warm heart,'\n      Then let the wind blow cold\n    On our clasped hands who fare across the wold.\n\n      \"'Hard lot, hot love,'\n      Then let out pathway go\n    Through lone, grey lands; knee-deep amid the snow.\"\n\nBut the Queen was generally too out of breath to be able to sing at all.\n\nAt last, however, the snow came right over the roof-tree, and they could\nnot go out of the house at all.  So they sat quietly around a great\nfire, and the little old woman span, and the Queen worked at the loom,\nand the blind man wove baskets out of osiers.  And they told tales.\n\nSaid the little old woman, \"I will tell you a tale that I had from my\ngrandmother, and she had it from hers, and so on, a great way back.\n\n\"Once upon a time, upon the earth there were no people at all, no men\nand women, but only little goblin things that covered the whole earth\nand made it a beautiful green colour.  But the sun was a bright flame\ncolour, and the moon very, very white.  So the Sun and the Earth took to\nquarrelling as to which was the more beautiful of the two.\n\n\"Said the Earth, 'I am the more beautiful; such a lovely green as mine\nwas surely never seen.'\n\n\"Said the Sun, 'But just look at my mantle of flame.'\n\n\"So, as they could not possibly agree, they submitted the matter to the\nMoon.  Now, the Moon was horribly jealous of the Sun, because he so\nterribly outshone her; so she gave her verdict for the Earth.\n\n\"Then, indeed, the Earth was proud, and gave itself such airs and graces\nthat not only the Sun, but the Moon and all the Sun declared war against\nit.\n\n\"So early one rooming the Sun peeped up over the edge of the sea, and\nsent a great trail of golden warriors over it to attack the\nEarth-spirits.\n\n\"They, for their part, were armed and ready, and all day long they\nfought and fought, and at last the Sun's warriors had to depart in a\nlong trail over the sea to the Sun again.  Then the Earth was more\ntriumphant than ever.  But, just as they were lying down to rest,\nslowly, slowly, the Moon came up and sent a great trail of its warriors\nover the sea, and the Stars poured down showers of little, little\nwarriors, and the poor Earth-spirits had to begin and fight all through\nthe night.  And, although they killed hundreds and hundreds and beat the\nrest off, no sooner was it done than they had to begin all over again\nagainst the Sun.\n\n\"This went on--day in, day out; night in, night out--for a long, long\ntime, until the poor Earth-spirits grew wearier and wearier, and their\nlovely green colour changed into a sickly yellow hue.\n\n\"Then in despair they prayed to the spirits of the air and of the great\nwaters to assist them. And the waters arose and covered in the Earth,\nand the winds of the air brought a mantle of clouds, so that the Earth\nwas shielded from the fury of the Sun and the constellations; but, alas!\nwhen the waters receded and the skies grew clear again, it was found\nthat all the poor Earth-spirits were drowned--all save a very few who\nhad taken refuge on the tops of the mountains.\n\n\"So these few, having such a lot to eat, gradually grew and grew till\nthey became men. And the dead bodies of the green Earth-spirits grew out\nof the Earth, too, and became the fruits of the Earth; but the dead\nbodies of the Sun and Moon warriors became gold and silver, and men dig\nthem out of the Earth.\n\n\"But still the quarrel goes on; for gold and silver are man's greatest\ncurse, and the fruits of the Earth his one blessing.\"\n\nAnd so with tales and work they beguiled the time of the waiting for the\nsnow's melting, and at last it came.  The valley was filled with the\nroaring of the brook, grown large with the melting of the snows, and the\nrobin sang from the copses.\n\nSo the spring came on, and the earth grew green, and it was the time of\nsowing, and the Queen had almost forgotten that she was able to\nfly--indeed, she mostly left her wind-flower crown at home.\n\nBut one day her eye fell upon it, and the thought suddenly struck her\nthat the bat had said that the wind-flowers had the power of curing\nblindness.\n\n\"Now, if only I knew how it was to be done, or if I had a few more of\nthem I'd cure _him_. Now, it's not really so very far from here to\nthere.  I might just fly over to the palace garden and ask the bat, and\nbe back this very evening\"--for it was then the early morning.  \"And I\nwon't tell them anything about it, and it'll be delightful.\"\n\nAnd so, without any more hesitation, she just opened the little window\nand was up among the dawn-clouds that were sweeping up from over the\nsea.  It was a little chilly and very lonely up there, and the silent\nflights of seagulls that she caught up and overpassed seemed too alarmed\nto talk to her.  The Queen felt a little lost, as if there were\nsomething missing.\n\n\"Somehow it doesn't seem half as nice as it used to do,\" she said to\nherself.  \"I wonder why it is?  I don't think, after I get home--I mean\nback here--I shall ever go flying again.\"\n\nBut she folded her hands in her cloak and went silently on over the grey\nshimmering sea. The sun grew higher and higher, and it was about eight\nin the morning before she was hovering over the city.\n\nShe alighted in a street that seemed somewhat empty, because she\ndisliked the attention that her mode of progression usually excited.\n\nJust in front of her, under a shed formed by the pushing up of the\nshutters of his shop, a tailor was seated, cross-legged, working away\nwith his head bent down over his work.\n\n\"Good morning!\" the Queen said.  \"Can I be of any use to you?\"\n\nThe tailor peered up at her through a great pair of horn spectacles.\n\n\"Eh?\" he said.\n\n\"I said, 'Can I be of any use to you?'\" the Queen replied.\n\nAnd the tailor regarded her in a dazed way. Suddenly he said--\n\n\"Oh yes; marry me, marry me, only marry me!\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh, nonsense,\" because she had just remembered the\nelixir.\n\nBut the tailor answered, \"It isn't nonsense--it really isn't.  It's true\nI'm married already; but I'll knock my wife on the head, and then I'll\nbe free.\"\n\nBut before the Queen could answer anything at all there began a sudden\ngrowling sound that resolved itself into a succession of footsteps\ncoming rapidly down wooden steps, and, in a moment, a door burst open\njust behind the tailor's back. There was an old woman with a great broom\njust behind it.\n\n\"Ah, would ye now! murder your wife, a respectable married woman, for\nthe sake of a hussy that comes dropping down out of the chimney-tops.\nI'll teach you.\"\n\nAnd with one sweep of her broom she knocked the poor little tailor off\nhis board, and made a dash at the Queen.\n\nBut the Queen took to her heels and ran off.\n\n\"Why, she's worse than Mrs. Hexer,\" she said to herself.  \"But really\nthis elixir is a great nuisance.  It makes it impossible to have any\npeace. But I wonder what all the flags and decorations are about.\"\n\nJust at that moment two people, who appeared to be a servant-girl and\nher mother, came out of a neighbouring house.  They were very gay in\nholiday costume.\n\n\"What is to happen to-day?\" the Queen asked.\n\nAnd the mother answered, \"Why, don't you know?  The Queen is twenty-one\nto-day, and she's going to marry the Regent, Lord Blackjowl.\"\n\n\"Going to marry the Regent!\" the Queen said. \"Why, who told you so?\"\n\n\"Everybody knows it,\" the mother answered.\n\n\"But how did everybody get to know it?\" the Queen asked.\n\nAnd the mother answered, \"The Regent told them, I suppose.\"\n\nAnd the girl said, \"It's up among the Royal proclamations on the\nnotice-board at the palace.\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh!  Will you show me the way to the palace?\" she\ncontinued.\n\n\"Why, certainly,\" the girl said.  \"We were just going that way to see\nthe procession.\"\n\nSo they set off through the gay streets.  As they went along the Queen\ncould see the young men on every side falling in love with her; but she\npaid no attention to them.\n\n\"Are you glad the Queen's going to be married?\" she asked her guides.\n\nAnd the girl answered, \"Oh yes; we get a holiday to go and see the\nprocession.\"\n\n\"Why, then, I suppose you'd be just as glad if the Queen died, and you\ncould go and see her funeral?\"\n\nAnd the old woman said, \"Of course!\"\n\nBy that time they had come to the market-place. It was crowded with\nthose who had come to see the sights, and the fountains were running\nwine instead of water; so, of course, there was rather a scramble to get\nat the fountains.  That left the ground clear for the Queen to get to\nthe notice-board where the Royal Proclamation hung.\n\nThere she saw, sure enough, the Regent's proclamation, saying that the\nQueen would marry him that day.  At the end of it there was the\nsignature, \"_Eldrida, Queen_.\"\n\n\"Why, it isn't my signature at all,\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the mother and daughter looked at her askance.\n\n\"Have any of you ever seen the Queen?\" she asked.\n\nAnd the mother answered, \"No; no one has ever seen the Queen but the\nRegent; but there was a story that a beggar told about a year ago, that\nshe had flown out of the palace and away. And they did say that Grubb\nthe honey-cake maker and some soldiers knew something about it.  But the\nRegent had them all executed, so we never came to know the rights of the\nstory. Anyhow, we're had to pay taxes just the same.\"\n\nNow the Queen grew really angry with the Regent Blackjowl.\n\nBut she said, \"Thank you,\" and \"Good-bye,\" to the mother and daughter,\nand slipped away through the crowd to the side-wall of the palace,\nwhere, in the road, she had first commenced her travels.\n\nHere there were very few people about, because there was little chance\nof seeing the procession from there.  She waited until the street was\nalmost empty, and then flew quietly over the palace wall and down into\nthe familiar garden.\n\nThere it was, a little more neglected and a little more weed overgrown\nthan ever, but otherwise just the same.  Only it seemed to have grown a\ngreat deal smaller in the Queen's eyes; but that was because she had\ngrown accustomed to great prospects and wide expanses of country.\n\nThe long, thorny arms of the roses had grown so much, that it was quite\ndifficult to get under them into the little seat.\n\n\"Now I shall have ever so much trouble to wake him, and he'll be\nfearfully surly,\" the Queen said to herself.\n\nBut it is always the unexpected that happens--as you will one day\nlearn--and the Queen found that the rustling that the leaves made at her\nentrance had awakened the bat.\n\n\"Hullo!\" he said, \"you there!  Glad to see you.  Heard from a\nnightingale that you'd been seen in disreputable company, going about\nwith geese.  Well, and what did you think of the world?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's a very nice place when you're used to it.\"\n\n\"That's what you think,\" the bat said.  \"Wait till you come to be my\nage.  But now, tell me your adventures.\"\n\n\"I'd better humour him,\" the Queen said to herself, and so she plunged\ninto the recital.\n\nWhen she had finished the bat said, \"H'm! and so you're going to marry\nthe Regent?\"\n\n\"I'm not going to do anything of the sort,\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the bat asked, \"Who are you going to marry, then?\"\n\nThe Queen answered, \"No one; at least----\"\n\nAnd the bat said, \"Just so.\"\n\nAnd the Queen replied, \"Don't be stupid. Oh, and tell me how one can\ncure blindness with wind-flowers.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"Do you know how to make tea?\"\n\n\"Of course I do,\" the Queen answered\n\n\"Well, you make an infusion of dried wind-flowers just like tea, and\nthen you give it to the young scamp to drink.\"\n\n\"He's not a scamp,\" the Queen said; \"but you're a dear good old bat all\nthe same.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"H'm!\"\n\nThe Queen rose to her feet.  \"Well, I must be off,\" she said.  \"I've got\na lot to do.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"Wait a minute; I'm coming too;\" and he dropped down and\nhung on to the Queen's shoulder.  He was rather a weight, but the Queen\nsuffered it.\n\n\"Why, there aren't any wind-flowers left!\" the Queen said, surveying the\nspot where they had grown.\n\nThe bat said, \"No; the weeds have choked them all.\"\n\nThe Queen rubbed her chin and said nothing.\n\nAnd the bat merely ejaculated, \"H'm!\"\n\nSo the Queen entered the palace.\n\nAll the great halls were silent, and empty of people, and she passed\nthrough one after the other, shivering a little at their vastness.\n\nAt last she came before the curtain that separated her from the Throne\nHall.  It was large enough to contain the whole nation.\n\nShe pushed the curtain aside and found herself standing behind the great\nthrone.  Through the interstices of the carved back she could see\neverything that was going on.  The Great Hall was thronged full of\npeople from end to end. On the throne platform the Regent was waiting,\nevidently about to begin a speech.\n\nThe Queen stopped and peeped; there was a great flourish of trumpets\nthat echoed and echoed along the hall, and the Regent began.\n\n\"Ladies noble, my lords, dames commoner, and gentlemen!\"  His great\nvoice sounded clearly through the silence.  \"As you are well aware, our\ngracious and high mighty sovereign, the Queen Eldrida, has deigned to\nfavour my unworthy self with the priceless honour of her hand, and that\non this auspicious day.  Her hand and seal affixed to the weighty\ndocument you have seen in the market-place.\"\n\nThe Queen walked round the opposite side of the throne into the view of\nthe people, who set up a tumultuous cheer.  The Regent, however, thought\nthey were cheering him, and went on with his speech.\n\n\"I had also announced that it was her Majesty's royal pleasure to reveal\nherself to her loyal people's eyes on this day.\"\n\nThe Queen slowly ascended the steps of the throne and seated herself\nthereon.  The great gold crown--it was six feet high, and so heavy that\nno head could bear its weight--hung above her head by a great gold\nchain.\n\nThe people cheered again, and still the Regent, whose back was to the\nthrone, deemed that they were applauding his speech.  He ran his fingers\nthrough his black beard and continued--\n\n\"It is, however, my painful duty to apprise you that her Majesty has\nbeen pleased to alter her design.  We shall, therefore, be married in\nprivate in the Queen's apartments.  The Queen's maiden modesty will not\nallow her to reveal her charms to the vulgar multitude.\"\n\nHe paused and watched the effect of his speech, nervously fingering his\nbeard and blinking with his little eyes.  The people whispered among\nthemselves, evidently unable to understand what it meant.\n\nSuddenly the Queen's voice rang through the hall.\n\n\"My people,\" she said, \"it is an infamous lie! I am here.\"\n\nThe Regent started and turned round; his face grew as pale as death.\nBut from the people a great shout went up at the discomfiture of the\nhated Regent.  It echoed and reverberated through the great hall, and\nthen silence fell again.\n\nThe Regent fell on his knees.  \"Oh, your Majesty,\" he said, \"marry me!\nmarry me! marry me!  I adore you! oh, only marry me!\"\n\nBut the Queen was very pale and stern. \"This man,\" she said to the\npeople, \"has concealed my absence, has forged my name, has slandered me.\nI unmake him; I degrade him; and I banish him the land!\"\n\nOnce again the people cheered to see the Regent led off by the guards.\n\nThen one of the nobles spoke, \"Your Majesty,\" he said, \"it is for the\ngood of the nation that you should marry.  The late Regent was a tyrant,\nand, as such, unfitted for the inestimable honour; but I am the first\nnoble in the realm.  I am beloved by the people; therefore, your\nMajesty, adding to it the fact that I respectfully adore your Majesty, I\nbeg your Majesty to let these things weigh down the balance of your\nmind, and marry me.\"\n\nBut hardly were the words out of his mouth when a tumult arose, the like\nof which was never heard in any land, for every man of the nation was\nshouting, \"Marry me! marry me!\" till the whole building quivered.\n\nThe Queen held up her hand for silence. \"Listen!\" she said.  \"I shall\nmarry no one of you; and I will not even remain your Queen. For I am\nquite unfitted for a ruler, and I don't in the least want to be one.\nTherefore, choose a ruler for yourselves.\"\n\nBut the people with one voice shouted, \"Be you our ruler!\"\n\nThe Queen, however, said, \"No; I cannot and will not.  It wouldn't be\nany good at all; besides, all the men would love me a great deal too\nmuch, and all the women would hate me a great deal too much, because of\ntheir husbands and sweethearts and all.  So you must choose a king for\nyourselves.\"\n\nBut confusion became doubly confounded, for every man in that vast\nassembly voted for himself as king.\n\n\"Oh, this will never do,\" the Queen said; \"because, at this rate, you'll\nall go on quarrelling for ever, and the kingdom had better have remained\nunder the Regent.  Shall I choose a king for you?\"\n\nAnd with one voice the people answered, \"Yes.\"\n\nSo the Queen said, \"The King I choose is very fit in one way, for he is\nnot likely to be partial, since he is in this vast assembly the only one\nthat is not in love with me.  He will be very economical, because he\nneither needs much food, nor cares for rich robes.  Therefore, the taxes\nwill not be heavy; and, even if he is a little weak-eyed, he will not be\na bit more blind to your interests, perhaps, than you are yourselves.\"\n\nSo saying, the Queen arose from the throne and, taking the bat from her\nshoulder, set him on the vacant seat, where he scuttled about and did\nnot seem particularly comfortable.\n\n\"Now, you're the King,\" the Queen said to him.\n\n\"H'm!\" he said.  \"Will they give me some raw meat?\"\n\nThe Queen said, \"Oh yes; and anything else you like to ask for.\"\n\nThe bat said, \"H'm! this seat isn't very comfortable.  What's that thing\nup there?\"\n\n\"That's the crown,\" the Queen said.\n\nAnd the King remarked, \"H'm!\" and in a moment he was hanging upside down\nfrom the bottom of the crown.\n\nAnd the people cheered their King.\n\nBut the Queen just said, \"Good-bye, your Majesty.\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" the Bat said.  \"I suppose you won't marry _me_?\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" the late Queen said; and she slipped behind the\ncurtain and ran through the deserted halls again, and once more out into\nthe garden.  And once again she watered her favourite plants, for the\nlast time, and then flew right up into the air and away, away over the\ntroubled seas, to the land that lay low in the horizon.\n\n\"How delightful it feels not to be a Queen any longer!\" she said to\nherself.  \"I always used to feel afraid, when I sat under that great\ncrown, that it might fall on my head and squash me altogether. But I\nwonder how the bat got on.\"\n\nThat the Queen never knew; but this was what happened.  The bat took to\nkingship quite as easily as a duck takes to water, and, for reasons that\nthe Queen gave, made a most popular ruler--even though he _was_ strictly\njust.  True, there were only three people in the kingdom who understood\nhim, and they were mouse-trap makers who had learnt the bat language\nfrom mice.  But, as the King always superintended the carrying out of\nhis own edicts, they did not care to play tricks.  And the Bat language\nwas taught in all the schools, so that it became the state tongue.  And\nall the ladies took to wearing brown sealskin cloaks with great puffed\nsleeves and capes, so as to look as much like bats as possible, and they\nall pretended to be very weak-sighted and turned night into day, in\nimitation of the King.\n\nSo that altogether the King was a great success from every point of\nview, as he was very long-lived, the last news that has reached here\nfrom the Narrowlands, reported that his Majesty was still hanging head\ndownwards from the great crown, and was still setting the fashion\nthroughout the kingdom, though the news does not tell us that his people\nhave yet resorted to hanging from the chandeliers by their toes.\n\nBut the Narrowlands is very far away from here, so that news does not\noften reach us from it; there is even no talk of opening the country up,\nwhich alone shows how difficult it must be to reach.\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\nIn the mean while the Queen had come to the other shore.  She flew\nstraight to the little cottage in the valley, and the cock who was\nstanding on the doorsill greeted her with a lusty crow, being glad to\nsee her again.\n\nIn the house there was no one to be found.\n\n\"The little mother must have gone to her bleaching,\" the Queen said to\nherself, \"and he--oh, he told me he was going to work in the wood\nto-day, so now I'll see about making the infusion. The kettle's on the\nboil, and it won't take long.\"\n\nShe took off the faded wind-flower crown, and looked at it for a moment.\n\n\"You poor thing!\" she said, \"it seems a shame, but still it can't be\nhelped,\" and in a moment she had dropped it into the boiling water,\nwhich rapidly assumed the golden straw colour of a weak cup of tea.\nThis she poured into a drinking-horn, and then set off with it into the\nwood at the back of the house.  It was rather a ticklish task, walking\nthrough the low, dusky wood with the horn in her hand, for it was\ngetting on in the day and the light was bad, and the small trees of\nwhich the wood was composed were difficult to walk among.\n\nBy her side the stream rushed and rustled over its rocky bottom, and her\nfeet crackled too on the flooring of last year's fallen leaves, but the\nsound that she paused every now and then to listen for she could not\nhear.  There came no sharp ringing of the axe down the valley among the\ntrees.\n\n\"He must be binding the faggots together,\" she said to herself, and went\non until she came to the clearing where he should have been at work; but\nthere he was not.\n\nThe light came down the valley duskily through the mist; it gleamed upon\nthe stream and glimmered on the white ends of the newly chopped faggots\nthat were neatly bound together with withies.\n\n\"He must have gone further on,\" she said to herself, and ran quite\nswiftly up the steep path that climbed into the heart of the mountains.\nThe falling of the night frightened her a little, and she was anxious to\nfind him.\n\nUp and up the rocky path went, whilst the stream foamed down beside it,\nand at last she saw him in a slant of light that came down a west-facing\nvalley.  He was crossing the stream just above where it thundered over a\ngreat boulder.\n\nThere was a bridge across the torrent, but it was only a tree-trunk, and\nhe preferred, in his blindness, to cross on the stream bottom, over the\nboulders with the aid of a good staff.  The water foamed up to his\nknees.\n\nShe came as close to the water's edge as she could, and called--\n\n\"Why, where are you going to?\"\n\nIn spite of the roaring of the waters he heard her and turned.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked\n\nAnd she answered, \"I am Eldrida.\"\n\nAnd in a moment, with a great splashing of the black water, he was at\nher side.\n\n\"I thought you had gone for good,\" he said. \"And so I worked as long as\nI felt able to; but just now it was all so silent and so dreadfully\nlonely, that I could not stand it, and I was about to set out to search\nfor you through the world.\"\n\n\"What all alone, and blind?\" she said.\n\nAnd he answered, \"Yes, since you were gone I was alone and blind; but if\nI had found you I should not have been alone, and hardly blind at all.\"\n\nShe put the horn into his hand, and said, \"Drink this.\"\n\n\"Why, what is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"It is what I went to fetch,\" she said; \"drink it and see.\"\n\nThe light was shining on his face as he raised it to his mouth and drank\nit off, and suddenly there came into his eyes a look of great joy.\n\n\"Why,\" he said, \"I can see!\" and in a moment he had thrown his arms\nround her and drew her tightly to him.  \"I love you more than all the\nworld!\" he said.  \"Do you love me?\"\n\nShe seemed to have forgotten all about the elixir, for instead of\nsaying, \"Don't be ridiculous!\" she just said, \"Yes, I love you very\nmuch.\"\n\nAnd the stream roared on over the great boulder and whirled back over\nthe rocky shallows, and the shadows in the valleys grew darker and\ndarker; but they both had a great deal to say, though, as a matter of\nfact, it might most of it have been said with three words and a kiss.\n\nBut, you see, they preferred to do it in another way; at least, as far\nas the speaking went--in my experience, there is only one way of\nkissing.\n\n\"So you see, I shan't be able to fly away any more,\" she said, after she\nhad related her story, \"because the poor wind-flower crown is all\nboiled.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" he said, \"I dare say you won't want it again, unless you get\nvery tired of me.\"\n\nAnd she said, \"Don't be ridiculous!\" but even that had nothing to do\nwith the elixir.\n\nAnd so they went home down the dark valley to the cottage.\n\nThe little mother smiled to see Eldrida.\n\n\"I knew you would come back,\" she said; \"but my son was in a dreadful\nstate--weren't you, son, son?\"\n\nAnd he only answered, \"Mother, mother, I was. And I am very hungry; and\nI can see again!\"\n\nSo there was great rejoicing in the cottage that night, and the little\nold woman's eyes grew bright with joy-tears.\n\nBut next day Eldrida and her love were married, and, from that time\nforth, they worked together, and went hand in hand up the tranquil\nvalley or in among the storms on the hillcrests, and so lived happily\never after.\n\n\n\n                                THE END.\n\n\n\n              PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,\n                          LONDON AND BECCLES.\n\n\n\n           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n                          *CHILDREN'S BOOKS.*\n\n                           *NURSERY LYRICS.*\n\n                       _By Mr. RICHARD STRACHEY._\n\n                   ILLUSTRATED BY G. P. JACOMB HOOD.\n\n                     Imperial 16mo.  Price 3s. 6d.\n\n_An alphabet designed by the artist is inserted in the volume so that\nthe donor may cut out the child's initials and fix them in the spaces on\nthe cover._\n\n\n\n                   *THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ALMERO.*\n\n                       _By WILHELMINA PICKERING._\n\n                    ILLUSTRATED BY MARGARET HOOPER.\n\n        Second edition.  Fcap. 4to.  Cloth Extra.  Price 3s. 6d.\n\n\n\n                    *HERCULES AND THE MARIONETTES.*\n\n                       _By R. MURRAY GILCHRIST._\n\n                     ILLUSTRATED BY C. P. SAINTON.\n\n                             Fcap. 4to. 5s.","title":"The Queen Who Flew: A Fairy Tale","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":20963}