"Oh yes, you can be of use," the little old woman said. "But it is such a pleasure for us to have guests, for we like to talk with them, and we like to please them as much as may be. But here is your breakfast; you must be quite hungry. And afterwards—after to-day, that is—my son will show you all about the farm. Only to-day he wants to finish his ploughing, and I am too old to go very far up the hills."
"It is wonderful how your son manages to work as he does," the Queen said.
And the little old woman's eyes looked proud and happy.
"He has lived all his life here, you see When he was quite a baby a flash of lightning blinded him; but now he knows his way everywhere about, and he can do almost all the farm-work. Sometimes he has a boy to help him; but just now, they're harvesting at our neighbour's, and the boy has gone down to help. But it makes my son rather slow in his ploughing, for he has to guide himself by feeling with his feet the last furrow he has made."
"Oh, I could lead the horses for him," the Queen said.
And the mother answered, "Yes, do, my dear; and you can take your dinner out with you. His dog always fetches his for him."
So the Queen finished her breakfast, and then set out along the valley towards the ploughing place.
By daylight she could see better how pleasant a place the valley was, very green in the bottom, with here and there a pollard willow by the stream, and here and there linen laid out to bleach on the grass. But the steep hills that shut it in were purple with heather, and brown with bracken, and, now and then, a lonely thorn tree. Behind her was the little white cottage, with a cluster of trees drawn down around it, and with the ducks and turkeys and chickens crowding the valley in front of it. Indeed, every now and then along the valley a lily-white duck would pop its golden-billed head out of the reeds and meadow-sweet of the stream to look at her as she passed along.
So she came to the hill where the valley made a sharp turn, and on the top of which she could see the ploughman. Up it she climbed through the heather, and speedily reached him.
"I've come to lead the horses for you," she said.