"Then you think there are no one-foot-one fairies in the other countries?" said Jack.
"Of course not," answered the apple-woman; "all the fairy lands are different. It's only the queens that are like."
"I wish the fairies would not disappear for hours," said Jack. "They all seem to run off and hide themselves."
"That's their ways," answered the apple-woman. "All fairies are part of their time in the shape of human creatures, and the rest of it in the shape of some animal. These can turn themselves, when they please, to Guinea-fowl. In the heat of the day they generally prefer to be in that form, and they sit among the leaves of the trees.
"A great many are now with the Queen, because there is a deputation coming: but if I were to begin to sing, such a flock of Guinea-hens would gather round that the boughs of the trees would bend with their weight, and they would light on the grass all about so thickly that not a blade of grass would be seen as far as the song was heard."
So she began to sing, and the air was darkened by great flocks of these Guinea-fowl. They alighted just as she had said, and kept time with their heads and their feet, nodding like a crowd of mandarins; and yet it was nothing but a stupid old song that you would have thought could have no particular meaning for them.
Like A Laverock in the Lift
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CHAPTER TWELVE
They Run Away from Old Mother Fate
Before the apple-woman had finished, Jack and Mopsa saw the Queen coming in great state, followed by thousands of the one-foot-one fairies, and leading by a ribbon round its neck a beautiful brown doe. A great many pretty fawns were walking among the fairies.
"Here's the deputation," said the apple-woman; but as the Guinea-fowl rose like a cloud at the approach of the Queen, and the fairies and fawns pressed forward, there was a good deal of noise and confusion, during which Mopsa stepped up close to Jack and whispered in his ear: "Remember, Jack, whatever you can do you may do."
Then the brown doe lay down at Mopsa's feet, and the Queen began:
"Jack and Mopsa, I love you both. I had a message last night from my old mother, and I told you what it was."
"Yes, Queen," said Mopsa, "you did."
"And now," continued the Queen, "she has sent this beautiful brown doe from the country beyond the lake, where they are in the greatest distress for a queen, to offer Mopsa the crown; and, Jack, it is fated that Mopsa is to reign there, so you had better say no more about it."
"I don't want to be a queen," said Mopsa, pouting; "I want to play with Jack."
"You are a queen already," answered the real Queen; "at least, you will be in a few days. You are so much grown, even since the morning, that you come up nearly to Jack's shoulder. In four days you will be as tall as I am; and it is quite impossible that anyone of fairy birth should be as tall as a queen in her own country."
"But I don't see what stags and does can want with a queen," said Jack.
"They were obliged to turn into deer," said the Queen, "when they crossed their own border; but they are fairies when they are at home, and they want Mopsa, because they are always obliged to have a queen of alien birth."
"If I go," said Mopsa, "shall Jack go too?"
"Oh, no," answered the Queen; "Jack and the apple-woman are my subjects."
"Apple-woman," said Jack, "tell us what you think; shall Mopsa go to this country?"
"Why, child," said the apple-woman, "go away from here she must; but she need not go off with the deer, I suppose, unless she likes. They look gentle and harmless; but it is very hard to get at the truth in this country, and I've heard queer stories about them."
"Have you?" said the Queen. "Well, you can repeat them if you like; but remember that the poor brown doe cannot contradict them."
So the apple-woman said: "I have heard, but I don't know how true it is, that in that country they shut up their queen in a great castle, and cover her with a veil, and never let the sun shine on her; for if by chance the least little sunbeam should light on her she would turn into a doe directly, and all the nation would turn with her, and stay so."
"I don't want to be shut up in a castle," said Mopsa.
"But is it true?" asked Jack.
"Well," said the apple-woman, "as I told you before, I cannot make out whether it's true or not, for all these stags and fawns look very mild, gentle creatures."
"I won't go," said Mopsa; "I would rather run away."
All this time the Queen with the brown doe had been gently pressing with the crowd nearer and nearer to the brink of the river, so that now Jack and Mopsa, who stood facing them, were quite close to the boat; and while they argued and tried to make Mopsa come away, Jack suddenly whispered to her to spring into the boat, which she did, and he after her, and at the same time he cried out:
"Now, boat, if you are my boat, set off as fast as you can, and let nothing of fairy birth get on board of you."
No sooner did he begin to speak than the boat swung itself away from the edge, and almost in a moment it was in the very middle of the river, and beginning to float gently down with the stream.
Now, as I have told you before, that river runs up the country instead of down to the sea, so Jack and Mopsa floated still farther up into Fairyland; and they saw the Queen, and the apple-woman, and all the crowd of fawns and fairies walking along the bank of the river, keeping exactly to the same pace that the boat went; and this went on for hours and hours, so that there seemed to be no chance that Jack and Mopsa could land; and they heard no voices at all, nor any sound but the baying of the old hound, who could not swim out to them, because Jack had forbidden the boat to take anything of fairy birth on board of her.
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Laverock in the Lift Sky-larks (known as "lavericks" in the North) are noted for their airy acrobatic lifts.