So useful it is to have money, heigh ho!
So useful it is to have money!
A. H. Clough.
The old hound went straight through the town, smelling Clink’s footsteps, till he came into a large field of barley; and there, sitting against a sheaf, for it was harvest time, they found Clink-of-the-Hole. He was a very ugly little brown man, and he was smoking a pipe in the shade; while crouched near him was the poor little woman, with her hands spread before her face.
“Good-day, sir,” said Clink to Jack. “You are a stranger here, no doubt?”
“Yes,” said Jack; “I only arrived this morning.”
“Have you seen the town?” asked Clink, civilly; “there is a very fine market.”
“Yes, I have seen the market,” answered Jack. “I went into it to buy a slave, but I did not see one that I liked.”
“Ah!” said Clink; “and yet they had some very fine articles.” Here he pointed to the poor little woman, and said, “Now that’s a useful body enough, and I had her very cheap.”
“What did you give for her?” said Jack, sitting down.
“Three pitchers,” said Clink, “and fifteen cups and saucers, and two shillings in the money of the town.”
“Is their money like this?” said Jack, taking out his shilling.
When Clink saw the shilling he changed color, and said, very earnestly, “Where did you get that, dear sir?”
“Oh, it was given me,” said Jack, carelessly.
Clink looked hard at the shilling, and so did the fairy woman, and Jack let them look some time, for he amused himself with throwing it up several times and catching it. At last he put it back in his pocket, and then Clink heaved a deep sigh. Then Jack took out a penny, and began to toss that up, upon which, to his great surprise, the little brown man fell on his knees, and said, “Oh, a shilling and a penny,—a shilling and a penny of mortal coin! What would I not give for a shilling and a penny!”
“I don’t believe you have got anything to give,” said Jack, cunningly; “I see nothing but that ring on your finger, and the old woman.”
“But I have a great many things at home, sir,” said the brown man, wiping his eyes; “and besides, that ring would be cheap at a shilling,—even a shilling of mortal coin.”
“Would the slave be cheap at a penny?” said Jack.
“Would you give a penny for her, dear sir?” inquired Clink, trembling with eagerness.
“She is honest,” answered Jack; “ask her whether I had better buy her with this penny.”
“It does not matter what she says,” replied the brown man; “I would sell twenty such as she is for a penny,—a real one.”
“Ask her,” repeated Jack; and the poor little woman wept bitterly, but she said, “No.”
“Why not?” asked Jack; but she only hung down her head and cried.
“I’ll make you suffer for this,” said the brown man. But when Jack took out the shilling, and said, “Shall I buy you with this, slave?” his eyes actually shot out sparks, he was so eager.
“Speak!” he said to the fairy woman; “and if you don’t say ‘Yes,’ I’ll strike you.”
“He cannot buy me with that,” answered the fairy woman, “unless it is the most valuable coin he has got.”
The brown man, on hearing this, rose up in a rage, and was just going to strike her a terrible blow, when Jack cried out, “Stop!” and took out his half-crown.
“Can I buy you with this?” said he; and the fairy woman answered, “Yes.”
Upon this Clink drew a long breath, and his eyes grew bigger and bigger as he gazed at the half-crown.
“Shall she be my slave forever, and not yours,” said Jack, “if I give you this?”
“She shall,” said the brown man. And he made such a low bow, as he took the money, that his head actually knocked the ground. Then he jumped up; and, as if he was afraid Jack should repent of his bargain, he ran off towards the hole in the hill with all his might, shouting for joy as he went.
“Slave,” said Jack, “that is a very ragged old apron that you have got, and your gown is quite worn out. Don’t you think we had better spend my shilling in buying you some new clothes? You look so very shabby.”
“Do I?” said the fairy woman, gently. “Well, master, you will do as you please.”
“But you know better than I do,” said Jack, “though you are my slave.”
“You had better give me the shilling, then,” answered the little old woman; “and then I advise you to go back to the boat, and wait there till I come.”
“What!” said Jack; “can you go all the way back into the town again? I think you must be tired, for you know you are so very old.”
The fairy woman laughed when Jack said this, and she had such a sweet laugh that he loved to hear it; but she took the shilling, and trudged off to the town, and he went back to the boat, his hound running after him.
He was a long time going, for he ran a good many times after butterflies, and then he climbed up several trees; and altogether he amused himself for such a long while that when he reached the boat his fairy woman was there before him. So he stepped on board, the hound followed, and the boat immediately began to swim on.
“Why, you have not bought any new clothes!” said Jack to his slave.
“No, master,” answered the fairy woman; “but I have bought what I wanted.” And she took out of her pocket a little tiny piece of purple ribbon, with a gold-colored satin edge, and a very small tortoise-shell comb.
When Jack saw these he was vexed, and said, “What do you mean by being so silly? I can’t scold you properly, because I don’t know what name to call you by, and I don’t like to say ‘Slave,’ because that sounds so rude. Why, this bit of ribbon is such a little bit that it’s of no use at all. It’s not large enough even to make one mitten of.”
“Isn’t it?” said the slave. “Just take hold of it, master, and let us see if it will stretch.”
So Jack did. And she pulled, and he pulled, and very soon the silk had stretched till it was nearly as large as a handkerchief; and then she shook it, and they pulled again. “This is very 98 good fun,” said Jack; “why now it is as large as an apron.”
So she shook it again, and gave it a twitch here and a pat there; and then they pulled again, and the silk suddenly stretched so wide that Jack was very nearly falling overboard. So Jack’s slave pulled off her ragged gown and apron, and put it on. It was a most beautiful robe of purple silk; it had a gold border, and it just fitted her.
“That will do,” she said. And then she took out the little tortoise-shell comb, pulled off her cap, and threw it into the river. She had a little knot of soft, gray hair, and she let it down, and began to comb. And as she combed the hair got much longer and thicker, till it fell in waves all about her throat. Then she combed again, and it all turned gold-color, and came tumbling down to her waist; and then she stood up in the boat, and combed once more, and shook out the hair, and there was such a quantity that it reached down to her feet, and she was so covered with it 99 that you could not see one bit of her, excepting her eyes, which peeped out, and looked bright and full of tears.
Then she began to gather up her lovely locks; and when she had dried her eyes with them, she said, “Master, do you know what you have done? look at me now!” So she threw back the hair from her face, and it was a beautiful young face; and she looked so happy that Jack was glad he had bought her with his half-crown,—so glad that he could not help crying, and the fair slave cried too; and then instantly the little fairies woke, and sprang out of Jack’s pockets. As they did so, Jovinian cried out, “Madam, I am your most humble servant”; and Roxaletta said, “I hope your Grace is well”; but the third got on Jack’s knee, and took hold of the buttons of his waistcoat, and when the lovely slave looked at her, she hid her face and blushed with pretty childish shyness.
“These are fairies,” said Jack’s slave; “but what are you?”
“Jack kissed me,” said the little thing; “and I want to sit on his knee.”
“Yes,” said Jack; “I took them out, and laid them in a row, to see that they were safe, and this one I kissed, because she looked such a little dear.”
“Was she not like the others, then?” asked the slave.
“Yes,” said Jack; “but I liked her the best; she was my favorite.”
Now, the instant these three fairies sprang out of Jack’s pockets, they got very much larger; in fact, they became fully grown,—that is to say, they measured exactly one foot one inch in height, which, as most people know, is exactly the proper height for fairies of that tribe. The two who had sprung out first were very beautifully dressed. One had a green velvet coat, and a sword, the hilt of which was incrusted with diamonds. The second had a white spangled robe, and the loveliest rubies and emeralds round her neck and in her hair; but the third, the one who sat on Jack’s 101 knee, had a white frock and a blue sash on. She had soft, fat arms, and a face just like that of a sweet little child.
When Jack’s slave saw this, she took the little creature on her knee, and said to her, “How comes it that you are not like your companions?”
And she answered, in a pretty lisping voice, “It’s because Jack kissed me.”
“Even so it must be,” answered the slave; “the love of a mortal works changes indeed. It is not often that we win anything so precious. Here, master, let her sit on your knee sometimes, and take care of her, for she cannot now take the same care of herself that others of her race are capable of.”
So Jack let little Mopsa sit on his knee; and when he was tired of admiring his slave, and wondering at the respect with which the other two fairies treated her, and at their cleverness in getting water-lilies for her, and fanning her with feathers, he curled himself up in the bottom of 102 the boat with his own little favorite, and taught her how to play at cat’s-cradle.
When they had been playing some time, and Mopsa was getting quite clever at the game, the lovely slave said, “Master, it is a long time since you spoke to me.”
“And yet,” said Jack, “there is something that I particularly want to ask you about.”
“Ask it then,” she replied.
“I don’t like to have a slave,” answered Jack; “and as you are so clever, don’t you think you can find out how to be free again?”
“I am very glad you asked me about that,” said the fairy woman. “Yes, master, I wish very much to be free; and as you were so kind as to give the most valuable piece of real money you possessed in order to buy me, I can be free if you can think of anything that you really like better than that half-crown, and if I can give it you.”
“Oh, there are many things,” said Jack. “I 103 like going up this river to Fairyland much better.”
“But you are going there, master,” said the fairy woman; “you were on the way before I met with you.”
“I like this little child better,” said Jack; “I love this little Mopsa. I should like her to belong to me.”
“She is yours,” answered the fairy woman; “she belongs to you already. Think of something else.”
Jack thought again, and was so long about it that at last the beautiful slave said to him, “Master, do you see those purple mountains?”
Jack turned round in the boat, and saw a splendid range of purple mountains, going up and up. They were very great and steep, each had a crown of snow, and the sky was very red behind them, for the sun was going down.
“At the other side of those mountains is Fairyland,” said the slave; “but if you cannot think of something that you should like better to 104 have than your half-crown, I can never enter in. The river flows straight up to yonder steep precipice, and there is a chasm in it which pierces it, and through which the river runs down beneath, among the very roots of the mountains, till it comes out at the other side. Thousands and thousands of the small people will come when they see the boat, each with a silken thread in his hand; but if there is a slave in it, not all their strength and skill can tow it through. Look at those rafts on the river; on them are the small people coming up.”
Jack looked, and saw that the river was spotted with rafts, on which were crowded brown fairy sailors, each one with three green stripes on his sleeve, which looked like good conduct marks. All these sailors were chattering very fast, and the rafts were coming down to meet the boat.
“All these sailors to tow my slave!” said Jack. “I wonder, I do wonder, what you are?” But the fairy woman only smiled, and Jack went on: 105 “I have thought of something that I should like much better than my half-crown. I should like to have a little tiny bit of that purple gown of yours with the gold border.”
Then the fairy woman said, “I thank you, master. Now I can be free.” So she told Jack to lend her his knife, and with it she cut off a very small piece of the skirt of her robe, and gave it to him. “Now mind,” she said, “I advise you never to stretch this unless you want to make some particular thing of it, for then it will only stretch to the right size; but if you merely begin to pull it for your own amusement, it will go on stretching and stretching, and I don’t know where it will stop.”
In the night she told a story,
In the night and all night through,
While the moon was in her glory,
And the branches dropped with dew.
’Twas my life she told, and round it
Rose the years as from a deep;
In the world’s great heart she found it,
Cradled like a child asleep.
In the night I saw her weaving
By the misty moonbeam cold,
All the weft her shuttle cleaving
With a sacred thread of gold.
Ah! she wept me tears of sorrow,
Lulling tears so mystic sweet;
Then she wove my last to-morrow,
And her web lay at my feet.
Of my life she made the story:
I must weep—so soon ’twas told!
But your name did lend it glory,
And your love its thread of gold!
By this time, as the sun had gone down, and none of the moons had risen, it would have been dark but that each of the rafts was rigged 107 with a small mast that had a lantern hung to it.
By the light of these lanterns Jack saw crowds of little brown faces; and presently many rafts had come up to the boat, which was now swimming very slowly. Every sailor in every raft fastened to the boat’s side a silken thread; then the rafts were rowed to shore, and the sailors jumped out, and began to tow the boat along.
These crimson threads looked no stronger than the silk that ladies sew with, yet by means of them the small people drew the boat along merrily. There were so many of them that they looked like an army as they marched in the light of the lanterns and torches. Jack thought they were very happy, though the work was hard, for they shouted and sang.
The fairy woman looked more beautiful than ever now, and far more stately. She had on a band of precious stones to bind back her hair, and they shone so brightly in the night that her features could be clearly seen.
Jack’s little favorite was fast asleep, and the other two fairies had flown away. He was beginning to feel rather sleepy himself, when he was roused by the voice of his free lady, who said to him, “Jack, there is no one listening now, so I will tell you my story. I am the Fairy Queen!”
Jack opened his eyes very wide, but he was so much surprised that he did not say a word.
“One day, long, long ago,” said the Queen, “I was discontented with my own happy country. I wished to see the world, so I set forth with a number of the one-foot-one fairies, and went down the wonderful river, thinking to see the world.
“So we sailed down the river till we came to that town which you know of; and there, in the very middle of the stream, stood a tower,—a tall tower, built upon a rock.
“Fairies are afraid of nothing but of other fairies, and we did not think this tower was fairy-work, so we left our ship and went up the 109 rock and into the tower, to see what it was like; but just as we had descended into the dungeon keep, we heard the gurgling of water overhead, and down came the tower. It was nothing but water enchanted into the likeness of stone, and we all fell down with it into the very bed of the river.
“Of course we were not drowned, but there we were obliged to lie, for we have no power out of our own element; and the next day the towns-people came down with a net and dragged the river, picked us all out of the meshes, and made us slaves. The one-foot-one fairies got away shortly; but from that day to this, in sorrow and distress, I have had to serve my masters. Luckily, my crown had fallen off in the water, so I was not known to be the Queen; but till you came, Jack, I had almost forgotten that I had ever been happy and free, and I had hardly any hope of getting away.”
“How sorry your people must have been,” 110 said Jack, “when they found you did not come home again.”
“No,” said the Queen: “they only went to sleep, and they will not wake till to-morrow morning, when I pass in again. They will think I have been absent for a day, and so will the apple-woman. You must not undeceive them; if you do, they will be very angry.”
“And who is the apple-woman?” inquired Jack; but the Queen blushed, and pretended not to hear the question, so he repeated,—
“Queen, who is the apple-woman?”
“I’ve only had her for a very little while,” said the Queen, evasively.
“And how long do you think you have been a slave. Queen?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know,” said the Queen. “I have never been able to make up my mind about that.”
And now all the moons began to shine, and all the trees lighted themselves up, for almost every leaf had a glowworm or a fire-fly on it, 111 and the water was full of fishes that had shining eyes. And now they were close to the steep mountain side; and Jack looked and saw an opening in it, into which the river ran. It was a kind of cave, something like a long, long church with a vaulted roof, only the pavement of it was that magic river, and a narrow towing-path ran on either side.
As they entered the cave there was a hollow, murmuring sound, and the Queen’s crown became so bright that it lighted up the whole boat; at the same time she began to tell Jack a wonderful story, which he liked very much to hear, but every fresh thing she said he forgot what had gone before; and at last, though he tried very hard to listen, he was obliged to go to sleep; and he slept soundly, and never dreamed of anything, till it was morning.
He saw such a curious sight when he woke! They had been going through this underground cavern all night, and now they were approaching its opening on the other side. This opening, 112 because they were a good way from it yet, looked like a lovely little round window of blue and yellow and green glass, but as they drew on he could see far-off mountains, blue sky, and a country all covered with sunshine.
He heard singing, too, such as fairies make; and he saw some beautiful people, such as those fairies whom he had brought with him. They were coming along the towing-path. They were all lady fairies; but they were not very polite, for as each one came up she took a silken rope out of a brown sailor’s hand, and gave him a shove which pushed him into the water. In fact, the water became filled with such swarms of these sailors that the boat could hardly get on. But the poor little brown fellows did not seem to mind this conduct, for they plunged and shook themselves about, scattering a good deal of spray. Then they all suddenly dived, and when they came up again they were ducks,—nothing but brown ducks, I assure you, with green stripes on their wings; and with a great deal of quacking 113 and floundering, they all began to swim back again as fast as they could.
Then Jack was a good deal vexed, and he said to himself, “If nobody thanks the ducks for towing us I will”; so he stood up in the boat and shouted, “Thank you, ducks; we are very much obliged to you!” But neither the Queen nor these new towers took the least notice, and gradually the boat came out of that dim cave and entered Fairyland, while the river became so narrow that you could hear the song of the towers quite easily; those on the right bank sang the first verse, and those on the left bank answered:—
Drop, drop from the leaves of lign aloes,
O honey-dew! drop from the tree.
Float up through your clear river shallows,
White lilies, beloved of the bee.
Let the people, O Queen! say, and bless thee,
Her bounty drops soft as the dew,
And spotless in honor confess thee,
As lilies are spotless in hue.
On the roof stands yon white stork awaking,
His feathers flush rosy the while,
For, lo! from the blushing east breaking,
The sun sheds the bloom of his smile.
Let them boast of thy word, “It is certain;
We doubt it no more,” let them say,
“Than to-morrow that night’s dusky curtain
Shall roll back its folds for the day.”
“Master,” whispered the old hound, who was lying at Jack’s feet.
“Well,” said Jack.
“They didn’t invent that song themselves,” said the hound; “the old apple-woman taught it to them,—the woman whom they love because she can make them cry.”
Jack was rather ashamed of the hound’s rudeness in saying this; but the Queen took no notice. And now they had reached a little landing-place, which ran out a few feet into the river, and was strewed thickly with cowslips and violets.
Here the boat stopped, and the Queen rose and got out.
Jack watched her. A whole crowd of one-foot-one fairies came down a garden to meet her, and he saw them conduct her to a beautiful tent, with golden poles and a silken covering; but nobody took the slightest notice of him, or of little Mopsa, or of the hound, and after a long silence the hound said, “Well, master, don’t you feel hungry? Why don’t you go with the others and have some breakfast?”
“The Queen didn’t invite me,” said Jack.
“But do you feel as if you couldn’t go?” asked the hound.
“Of course not,” answered Jack; “but perhaps I may not.”
“Oh, yes, master,” replied the hound; “whatever you can do in Fairyland you may do.”
“Are you sure of that?” asked Jack.
“Quite sure, master,” said the hound; “and I am hungry too.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I will go there and take Mopsa. She shall ride on my shoulder; you may follow.”
So he walked up that beautiful garden till he came to the great tent. A banquet was going on inside. All the one-foot-one fairies sat down the sides of the table, and at the top sat the Queen on a larger chair; and there were two empty chairs, one on each side of her.
Jack blushed; but the hound whispering again, “Master, whatever you can do you may do,” he came slowly up the table towards the Queen, who was saying, as he drew near, “Where is our trusty and well-beloved, the apple-woman?” And she took no notice of Jack; so, though he could not help feeling rather red and ashamed, he went and sat in the chair beside her with Mopsa still on his shoulder. Mopsa laughed for joy when she saw the feast. The Queen said, “O Jack, I am so glad to see you!” and some of the one-foot-one fairies cried out, “What a delightful little creature that is! She can laugh! Perhaps she can also cry!”
Jack looked about, but there was no seat for 117 Mopsa; and he was afraid to let her run about on the floor, lest she should be hurt.
There was a very large dish standing before the Queen; for though the people were small, the plates and dishes were exactly like those we use, and of the same size.
This dish was raised on a foot, and filled with grapes and peaches. Jack wondered at himself for doing it, but he saw no other place for Mopsa; so he took out the fruit, laid it round the dish, and set his own little one-foot-one in the dish.
Nobody looked in the least surprised; and there she sat very happily, biting an apple with her small white teeth.
Then, as they brought him nothing to eat, Jack helped himself from some of the dishes before him, and found that a fairy breakfast was very nice indeed.
In the meantime there was a noise outside, and in stumped an elderly woman. She had very thick boots on, a short gown of red print, an 118 orange cotton handkerchief over her shoulders, and a black silk bonnet. She was exactly the same height as the Queen,—for of course nobody in Fairyland is allowed to be any bigger than the Queen; so, if they are not children when they arrive, they are obliged to shrink.
“How are you, dear?” said the Queen.
“I am as well as can be expected,” answered the apple-woman, sitting down in the empty chair. “Now, then, where’s my tea? They’re never ready with my cup of tea.”
Two attendants immediately brought a cup of tea, and set it down before the apple-woman, with a plate of bread and butter; and she proceeded to pour it into the saucer, and blow it, because it was hot. In so doing her wandering eyes caught sight of Jack and little Mopsa, and she set down the saucer, and looked at them with attention.
Now Mopsa, I am sorry to say, was behaving so badly that Jack was quite ashamed of her. First, she got out of her dish, took something 119 nice out of the Queen’s plate with her fingers, and ate it; and then, as she was going back, she tumbled over a melon, and upset a glass of red wine, which she wiped up with her white frock; after which she got into her dish again, and there she sat smiling, and daubing her pretty face with a piece of buttered muffin.
“Mopsa,” said Jack, “you are very naughty; if you behave in this way, I shall never take you out to parties again.”
“Pretty lamb!” said the apple-woman; “It’s just like a child.” And then she burst into tears, and exclaimed, sobbing, “It’s many a long day since I’ve seen a child. Oh dear! oh deary me!”
Upon this, to the astonishment of Jack, every one of the guests began to cry and sob too.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” they said to one another, “we’re crying; we can cry just as well as men and women. Isn’t it delightful? What a luxury it is to cry, to be sure!”
They were evidently quite proud of it; and 120 when Jack looked at the Queen for an explanation, she only gave him a still little smile.
But Mopsa crept along the table to the apple-woman, let her take her and hug her, and seemed to like her very much; for as she sat on her knee, she patted her brown face with a little dimpled hand.
“I should like vastly well to be her nurse,” said the apple-woman, drying her eyes, and looking at Jack.
“If you’ll always wash her, and put clean frocks on her, you may,” said Jack; “for just look at her,—what a figure she is already!”
Upon this the apple-woman laughed for joy, and again every one else did the same. The fairies can only laugh and cry when they see mortals do so.
Stephano.—This will prove a brave kingdom to me,
Where I shall have my music for nothing.
The Tempest.
When breakfast was over, the guests got up, one after the other, without taking the least notice of the Queen; and the tent began to get so thin and transparent that you could see the trees and the sky through it. At last, it looked only like a colored mist, with blue, and green, and yellow stripes, and then it was gone; and the table and all the things on it began to go in the same way. Only Jack, and the apple-woman, and Mopsa were left, sitting on their chairs, with the Queen between them.
Presently, the Queen’s lips began to move, 122 and her eyes looked straight before her, as she sat upright in her chair. Whereupon the apple-woman snatched up Mopsa, and, seizing Jack’s hand, hurried him off, exclaiming, “Come away! come away! She is going to tell one of her stories; and if you listen, you’ll be obliged to go to sleep, and sleep nobody knows how long.”
Jack did not want to go to sleep; he wished to go down to the river again, and see what had become of his boat, for he had left his cap and several other things in it.
So he parted from the apple-woman,—who took Mopsa with her, and said he would find her again when he wanted her at her apple-stall,—and went down to the boat, where he saw that his faithful hound was there before him.
“It was lucky, master, that I came when I did,” said the hound, “for a dozen or so of those one-foot-one fellows were just shoving it off, and you will want it at night to sleep in.”
“Yes,” said Jack; “and I can stretch the bit 123 of purple silk to make a canopy over head,—a sort of awning,—for I should not like to sleep in tents or palaces that are inclined to melt away.”
So the hound with his teeth, and Jack with his hands, pulled and pulled at the silk till it was large enough to make a splendid canopy, like a tent; and it reached down to the water’s edge, and roofed in all the after part of the boat.
So now he had a delightful little home of his own; and there was no fear of its being blown away, for no wind ever blows in Fairyland. All the trees are quite still, no leaf rustles, and the flowers lie on the ground exactly where they fall.
After this Jack told the hound to watch his boat, and went himself in search of the apple-woman. Not one fairy was to be seen, any more than if he had been in his own country, and he wandered down the green margin of the river till he saw the apple-woman sitting at a small 124 stall with apples on it, and cherries tied to sticks, and some dry-looking nuts. She had Mopsa on her knee, and had washed her face, and put a beautiful clean white frock on her.
“Where are all the fairies gone to?” asked Jack.
“I never take any notice of that common trash and their doings,” she answered. “When the Queen takes to telling her stories they are generally frightened, and go and sit in the tops of the trees.”
“But you seem very fond of Mopsa,” said Jack, “and she is one of them. You will help me to take care of her, won’t you, tills she grows a little older?”
“Grows!” said the apple-woman, laughing. “Grows! Why you don’t think, surely, that she will ever be any different from what she is now?”
“I thought she would grow up,” said Jack.
“They never change so long as they last,” 125 answered the apple-woman, “when once they are one-foot-one high.”
“Mopsa,” said Jack, “come here, and I’ll measure you.”
Mopsa came dancing towards Jack, and he tried to measure her, first with a yard measure that the apple-woman took out of her pocket, and then with a stick, and then with a bit of string; but Mopsa would not stand steady, and at last it ended in their having a good game of romps together, and a race; but when he carried her back, sitting on his shoulder, he was sorry to see that the apple-woman was crying again, and he asked her kindly what she did it for.
“It is because,” she answered, “I shall never see my own country any more, nor any men and women and children, excepting such as by a rare chance stray in for a little while as you have done.”
“I can go back whenever I please,” said Jack. “Why don’t you?”
“Because I came in of my own good-will, after I had had fair warning that if I came at all 126 it would end in my staying always. Besides, I don’t know that I exactly wish to go home again: I should be afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” asked Jack.
“Why, there’s the rain and the cold, and not having anything to eat excepting what you earn. And yet,” said the apple-woman, “I have three boys of my own at home; one of them must be nearly a man by this time, and the youngest is about as old as you are. If I went home I might find one or more of those boys in jail, and then how miserable I should be.”
“But you are not happy as it is,” said Jack. “I have seen you cry.”
“Yes,” said the apple-woman; “but now I live here I don’t care about anything so much as I used to do. ‘May I have a satin gown and a coach?’ I asked, when first I came. ‘You may have a hundred and fifty satin gowns if you like,’ said the Queen, ‘and twenty coaches with six cream-colored horses to each.’ But when I had been here a little time, and found I could 127 have everything I wished for, and change it as often as I pleased, I began not to care for anything; and at last I got so sick of all their grand things that I dressed myself in my own clothes that I came in, and made up my mind to have a stall and sit at it, as I used to do, selling apples. And I used to say to myself, ‘I have but to wish with all my heart to go home, and I can go, I know that;’ but oh dear! oh dear! I couldn’t wish enough, for it would come into my head that I should be poor, or that my boys would have forgotten me, or that my neighbors would look down on me, and so I always put off wishing for another day. Now here is the Queen coming. Sit down on the grass and play with Mopsa. Don’t let her see us talking together, lest she should think I have been telling you things which you ought not to know.”
Jack looked, and saw the Queen coming slowly towards them, with her hands held out before her, as if it was dark. She felt her way, yet her eyes were wide open, and she was telling her stories all the time.
“Don’t you listen to a word she says,” whispered the apple-woman; and then, in order that Jack might not hear what the Queen was talking about, she began to sing.
She had no sooner begun than up from the river came swarms of one-foot-one fairies to listen, and hundreds of them dropped down from the trees. The Queen, too, seemed to attend as they did, though she kept murmuring her story all the time; and nothing that any of them did appeared to surprise the apple-woman,—she sang as if nobody was taking any notice at all:—
When I sit on market-days amid the comers and the goers,
Oh! full oft I have a vision of the days without alloy,
And a ship comes up the river with a jolly gang of towers,
And a “pull’e haul’e, pull’e haul’e, yoy! heave, hoy!”
There is busy talk around me, all about mine ears it hummeth,
But the wooden wharves I look on, and a dancing, heaving buoy,
For ’tis tidetime in the river, and she cometh—oh, she cometh!
With a “pull’e haul’e, pull’e haul’e, yoy! heave, hoy!”
Then I hear the water washing, never golden waves were brighter,
And I hear the capstan creaking—’tis a sound that cannot cloy.
Bring her to, to ship her lading, brig or schooner, sloop or lighter,
With a “pull’e haul’e, pull’e haule, yoy! heave, hoy!”
“Will ye step aboard, my dearest? for the high seas lie before us.”
So I sailed adown the river in those days without alloy.
We are launched! But when, I wonder, shall a sweeter sound float o’er us
Than yon “pull’e haul’e, pull’e haul’e, yoy! heave, hoy!”
As the apple-woman left off singing, the Queen moved away, still murmuring the words of her story, and Jack said,—
“Does the Queen tell stories of what has happened, or of what is going to happen?”
“Why, of what is going to happen, of course,” replied the woman. “Anybody could tell the other sort.”
“Because I heard a little of it,” observed Jack. “I thought she was talking of me. She said 130 ‘So he took the measure, and Mopsa stood still for once, and he found she was only one foot high, and she grew a great deal after that. Yes, she can grow.’”
“That’s a fine hearing, and a strange hearing,” said the apple-woman; “and what did she mutter next?”
“Of how she heard me sobbing,” replied Jack; “and while you went on about stepping on board the ship, she said, ‘He was very good to me, dear little fellow! But Fate is the name of my old mother, and she reigns here. Oh, she reigns! The fatal F is in her name, and I cannot take it out!’”
“Ah!” replied the apple-woman, “they all say that, and that they are fays, and that mortals call their history fable; they are always crying out for an alphabet without the fatal F.”
“And then she told how she heard Mopsa sobbing too,” said Jack; “sobbing among the reeds and rushes by the river side.”
“There are no reeds, and no rushes either, 131 here,” said the apple-woman, “and I have walked the river from end to end. I don’t think much of that part of the story. But you are sure she said that Mopsa was short of her proper height?”
“Yes, and that she would grow; but that’s nothing. In my country we always grow.”
“Hold your tongue about you country!” said the apple-woman, sharply. “Do you want to make enemies of them all?”
Mopsa had been listening to this, and now she said, “I don’t love the Queen. She slapped my arm as she went by, and it hurts.”
Mopsa showed her little fat arm as she spoke, and there was a red place on it.
“That’s odd, too,” said the apple-woman; “there’s nothing red in a common fairy’s veins. They have sap in them: that’s why they can’t blush.”
Just then the sun went down, and Mopsa got up on the apple-woman’s lap, and went to sleep; and Jack, being tired, went to his boat and lay 132 down under the purple canopy, his old hound lying at his feet to keep guard over him.
The next morning, when he woke, a pretty voice called to him, “Jack! Jack!” and he opened his eyes and saw Mopsa. The apple-woman had dressed her in a clean frock and blue shoes, and her hair was so long! She was standing on the landing-place, close to him. “O Jack! I’m so big,” she said. “I grew in the night; look at me.”
Jack looked. Yes, Mopsa had grown indeed; she had only just reached to his knee the day before, and now her little bright head, when he measured her, came as high as the second button of his waistcoat.
“But I hope you will not go on growing so fast as this,” said Jack, “or you will be as tall as my mamma is in a week or two,—much too big for me to play with.”