“‘Will ye step aboard, my dearest? for the high seas lie before us.’
So I sailed adown the river in those days without alloy.
We are launched! But when, I wonder, shall a sweeter sound float o’er us
Than yon ‘pull’e haul’e, pull’e haul’e, yoy! heave hoy!’”
As the apple-woman left off singing, the Queen moved away, still murmuring the words of her story, and Jack said:
“Does the Queen tell stories of what has happened, or of what is going to happen?”
“Why, of what is going to happen, of course,” replied the woman, “Anybody could tell the other sort.”
“Because I heard a little of it,” observed Jack. “I thought she was talking of me. She said, ‘So he took the measure, and Mopsa stood still for once, and he found she was only one foot high, and she grew a great deal after that. Yes, she can grow.’”
“That’s a fine hearing, and a strange hearing,” said the apple-woman; “and what did she mutter next?”
“Of how she heard me sobbing,” replied Jack; “and while you went on about stepping on board the ship, she said, ‘He was very good to me, dear little fellow! But Fate is the name of my old mother, and she reigns here. Oh, she reigns! The fatal F is in her name, and I cannot take it out!’”