"Well, I shouldn't surrender in any name but my own, and I shan't
surrender at all. I am the Queen."
Whereupon the leader of the soldiers, who had not had the fortune to get
at any of the Queen's jewellery, said, "Release the lady;" and, rather
crestfallen, the soldiers obeyed him.
"Oh, your Majesty," the leader said, kneeling, "we have had such a
trouble to find you. The Regent, discovering that your Majesty had left
the palace, told us to follow you with all haste to provide for your
safety."
"So you provided for it by trying to rob people's houses," the Queen
said.
And the leader answered, "Oh no, your Majesty. We feared, knowing that
James Grubb is a noted rebel, that he had kidnapped your Majesty, and so
were making a domiciliary search."
"I'm not a noted rebel," the honey-cake maker gasped. "I'm only noted
for my honey-cakes."
But no one noticed his little puff.
The Queen said to the soldiers, "Well, I don't want you. You can go;
and don't make any more domiciliary searches."
The leader, however, answered, "Oh, but, your Majesty, domiciliary
searches are most necessary in the present state of the kingdom."
"I don't care," the Queen said; "I forbid you to make them. So now go
away."
"But, your Majesty," the leader answered, "the Regent gave us orders to
conduct your Majesty back to the palace. It is not constitutional."
"I'm sure I don't care," the Queen answered; "I'm not going back.
Good-bye."
And she suddenly flew straight up into the air and away over the
housetops, and the last sight she had of them showed them, with their
faces upturned towards her, gazing in dumb astonishment, the leader
still on his knees and the honey-cake maker on his back in the street.
The beggar had long since slunk round a corner and disappeared.
So the Queen rose to quite a great height in the air.
"I shall go right away from the town," she said "The smoke is so choking
up here above the roofs. However people can live down there I can't
make out."
So she went right up into the blue sky and made her way towards where,
at the skirts of the town, the mountains rose steep and frowning.
Up there, standing on the mountain's crest, she had a glorious view of
sea and sky and town and country.
The sea threw back the deep blue of the sky above, and the white
wave-horses flecked its surface, and the ships passed silently far out
at sea; down below her feet, it beat against the rocky base of the
cliff, and in and out amongst the spray the seagulls flew like a white
cloud.
The town lay in a narrow valley, broad at the sea face, and running
inwards into narrowness between grey, grand hills, right to where it
disappeared in the windings of the pass. Down below, in the harbour,
she could see the boats getting ready for sea.
"Oh, how wonderful!" the Queen said; "and it all belongs to me--at
least, so they say--though I can't quite see what good it does me, for I
can't be everywhere at once. And I can't even make the hills move or
the sea heave its breast; so that I can't see that it does me any more
good than any one else, because it isn't even constitutional for me to
be here. I ought to be down there in the palace garden, seeing nothing
at all. However, it's very lovely here, so I mustn't grumble. I wonder
how the bat is getting on, and the Regent, and all."
So for a while she stayed, looking down at the town. Into the streets
she could not see, for the houses stood in the way, but she could see
the market-place plainly enough and the palace steps.
Presently a number of soldiers came running into the market-place, and
up into the palace, and the Queen knew they had come to announce her
flight.
And then, a few minutes after, she saw then coming rapidly out of the
doors.
"Goodness me!" the Queen said, "the Regent is kicking them down the
steps. I shan't go back there again, or he might take to kicking me."
So she set out along the hilltops, sometimes walking and sometimes
flying over the valleys, so that, by the time the sun was near setting,
she found herself in a great stretch of dreary uplands, with nothing
like a house for miles around.
"Now, whatever shall I do?" she said. "It's coming on quite dark, and I
don't know where I am. I've a good mind to lie down and go to sleep on
the heather; only there might be some sort of wild animals about, and it
wouldn't be safe."
Then the sun sank lower and lower, and the Queen began to feel a little
lonely and very nervous. There was not a sound to be heard, save the
roar of a brook that ran, gleaming white, among the boulders in the
gloom of the valley at her feet.
"If I fly right up in the air again I shall be safe, at any rate," the
Queen said. "I shan't go tumbling over precipices or getting eaten up
by wolves."
So she flew right up into the upper air where she could see the sun
again, and she tried to catch him up, flying fast, fast westwards. But
she found that the sun went a great deal faster than she could go--for,
you know, the sun goes a great deal more quickly than a train--and
gradually he sank below the horizon, and the Queen was left alone with
nothing but the stars to keep her company.
As you may imagine, it was not the pleasantest of feelings, that flying
through the pitch-dark night, and the Queen felt continually afraid of
running against something, though she was really far too high to do any
such thing.
But, for all that, she had the dread constantly in her mind, until at
last the moon crept silently into being above a hill, seeming like an
old friend, and soon all the land below was bathed in white light. The
Queen glided on; like a black cloud, she could see her shadow running
along the fields below her. She watched till she grew sleepier and
sleepier, and found herself nodding, to wake with a start and then fall
off to sleep again; till, at last, she fell asleep for good and all, and
went sailing quietly along in the white night, whilst the moon gradually
mounted up straight overhead, and then sank lower and lower, and the
dawn began to wash the world below her with a warmer light.
But the Queen slept softly on; and, indeed, never bed was softer than
the air of the summer night.
The sun had been up some little while when she was awakened by just
touching on the top of a lofty mountain, that reached up into the sky
and stopped her progress; so that, when she was fully awakened, she
found herself seated on its peak.
She rubbed her eyes, and in a moment remembered all that had happened
before she had dropped off to sleep.
"Goodness me! I feel awfully hungry," she said to herself, and,
standing up, looked around her.
On the one side, the mountain towered above the uplands over which she
had passed in the night, but they looked dreary and uninviting; on the
other, in a fair plain, stood a town--she could see the smoke rising
from the chimneys and the weather-cocks gleaming in the morning sunlight
as they veered about in the breeze. So she flew gently down towards it,
and the shepherds in the fields and the women at the cottage doors
stared in amazement, and came rushing after her as she swept past
through the air.
So, by the time she arrived in the town, quite a great crowd had
followed her.
At last she alighted just before the town gates, and, as there was no
guard to stop her, entered boldly enough, and walked on for a little way
until she came to a shop that seemed to be a cake-shop, for one half of
its window was full of cakes, and the other of boots and shoes. And,
indeed, the owner, an old man with spectacles on, was seated on his
doorstep busily working away at his cobbler's bench.