"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.

[Illustration: THEY RUN AWAY FROM OLD MOTHER FATE.

"The boat swung itself away from the edge, and almost in a moment it was
in the very middle of the river."--PAGE 162.]

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.

Luckily the bottom of the boat was full of those delicious flowers
that had dropped into it at breakfast-time, so there was plenty of
nice food for Jack