"Have any of you ever seen the Queen?" she asked.
And the mother answered, "No; no one has ever seen the Queen but the Regent; but there was a story that a beggar told about a year ago, that she had flown out of the palace and away. And they did say that Grubb the honey-cake maker and some soldiers knew something about it. But the Regent had them all executed, so we never came to know the rights of the story. Anyhow, we're had to pay taxes just the same."
Now the Queen grew really angry with the Regent Blackjowl.
But she said, "Thank you," and "Good-bye," to the mother and daughter, and slipped away through the crowd to the side-wall of the palace, where, in the road, she had first commenced her travels.
Here there were very few people about, because there was little chance of seeing the procession from there. She waited until the street was almost empty, and then flew quietly over the palace wall and down into the familiar garden.
There it was, a little more neglected and a little more weed overgrown than ever, but otherwise just the same. Only it seemed to have grown a great deal smaller in the Queen's eyes; but that was because she had grown accustomed to great prospects and wide expanses of country.
The long, thorny arms of the roses had grown so much, that it was quite difficult to get under them into the little seat.
"Now I shall have ever so much trouble to wake him, and he'll be fearfully surly," the Queen said to herself.
But it is always the unexpected that happens—as you will one day learn—and the Queen found that the rustling that the leaves made at her entrance had awakened the bat.
"Hullo!" he said, "you there! Glad to see you. Heard from a nightingale that you'd been seen in disreputable company, going about with geese. Well, and what did you think of the world?"