“Master,” whispered the old hound, who was lying at Jack’s feet.
“Well?” said Jack.
“They didn’t invent that song themselves,” said the hound; “the old apple-woman taught it to them—the woman whom they love because she can make them cry.”
Jack was rather ashamed of the hound’s rudeness in saying this; but the Queen took no notice. And now they had reached a little landing-place, which ran out a few feet into the river, and was strewed thickly with cowslips and violets.
Here the boat stopped, and the Queen rose and got out.
Jack watched her. A whole crowd of one-foot-one fairies came down a garden to meet her, and he saw them conduct her to a beautiful tent with golden poles and a silken covering; but nobody took the slightest notice of him, or of little Mopsa, or of the hound, and after a long silence the hound said, “Well, master, don’t you feel hungry? Why don’t you go with the others and have some breakfast?”
“The Queen didn’t invite me,” said Jack.
“But do you feel as if you couldn’t go?” asked the hound.
“Of course not,” answered Jack; “but perhaps I may not.”
“Oh, yes, master,” replied the hound; “whatever you can do in Fairyland you may do.”