Then the geese wanted to set forth for the river, and asked the Queen to come with them, which she did willingly enough, after she had tidied the house a little and had made up the fire so that it might not quite go out.
Then gaily they trooped off over the sand-dunes towards the river, the geese marching gravely in line; only the old grey gander went beside the Queen and talked to her.
Just where the river ran was a green meadow with several pools of water in it. And the meadow was perfectly alive with birds; everywhere their wings seemed to be flapping and fluttering and showing the whites underneath them.
They eyed the Queen with something like alarm, but the old grey gander made a speech in which he referred to the Queen as their preserver and friend; and the Queen said that, far from wishing to do them any harm, she was very fond of birds.
And so the flapping of wings went on again, and the sun shone down upon the gay meadow. But the geese led the Queen to the river's edge, and there she sat down on the bank beneath a willow tree, whilst they jumped in and revelled in the clear water.
So the sun rose higher and higher, and the shade of the tree grew more and more grateful to the Queen, and the geese came out of the river and arranged themselves for a nap on the grass around her.
During the sun's height, too, all the other birds were more silent; it was too hot for violent exercise.
So the river gurgled among the rushes, and they rustled and bent their heads, and the willow leaves forgot to tremble for want of a breeze. And the great, placid flow of the river was without a dimple on its face, save when a fish sprang gleaming out after a low-flying midge.
So the Queen felt happy and contented, and she, too, dozed off into a little nap, whilst the woolly clouds slowly sailed across the blue heaven.
But towards evening the birds all woke up; the peewits flew off in a flock to the marshy flats down the river, and the snipe whirred away to the mud-banks, and the geese arose and cropped the greensward with their bills.