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 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 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 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 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: "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 amus.e.m.e.nt, it will go on stretching and stretching, and I don't know where it will stop."

CHAPTER VIII.

A STORY.

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 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 sh.o.r.e, and the sailors jumped out, and began to tow the boat along.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STORY.--PAGE 106.]

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 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," 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 pa.s.s 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."