But what Peter was going to do Ann and Rudolf did not hear, for at that moment they were all three nearly spilled out of the little carriage by the furious rate at which their driver turned a corner.  They had left the dolls’ city far behind them and were out on the long brown road that led past the little tent where the children had been arrested by Jinks and the sergeant.  Now they were out in the open country hurrying past the wonderful bright-colored plains, past fields of pink and purple, blue and green and yellow, white and scarlet, faster and faster all the time, the horses rushing along with such curious irregular jerks and bounds that it was almost impossible for the children to keep their seats, and they expected at each moment to be dumped in the middle of the road.

“Look out!” shouted Rudolf to the coachman.  “Don’t you see you are going to upset us?”

The coachman was a very grand-looking person in a white and gold livery.  He never even turned his powdered head as he shouted back: 

“Didn’t have no—­or-ders—­not—­to!” And for some time they tore on faster than ever.

At last Ann leaned forward and caught hold of one of the coachman’s little gold-embroidered coat tails.  “Oh, do take care,” she cried, “you might run somebody down!”

“That’s it,”—­the coachman’s voice sounded faint and jerky, and the children could hardly catch the words that floated back to them:  “Running—­down—­run-ing—­down!  As—­fast—­as—­ev-er—­I—­can.  Most—­com-pli-cated—­insides—­in—­all—­the—­king-dom.  Can’t—­be —­wound—­up—­not—­by—­likes—­of—­you—­”

The horses were no longer galloping, now they were slowing up, now they stopped, but with such a sudden jerk that all three children were tumbled out into the road.  They had been expecting this to happen for so long that the thing was not such a shock after all, and somehow they landed without being hurt in the slightest.  They picked themselves up, and saw the little carriage standing at the side of the road, the horses perfectly motionless, each with a forefoot raised in the air, the coachman stiff and still upon his box, gazing straight in front of him.

“He’ll stay like that,” said Peter mournfully, rubbing the dust from his knees, “till he’s wound up again.  I wish we had the key!”

“I wish we did,” said Rudolf crossly.  “You know what Betsy says about—­’If wishes were horses, beggars could ride’—­well, they aren’t, so we’ve got to walk now.  I wonder where we are?”

Looking around them, the children saw that they had come to the very last of the many colored fields, where the brown road ended in a stretch of creamy-yellow grass.  Just beyond a thick woods began, but was divided from the creamy field by a broad bright strip of color, like a long flower bed planted with flowers of all kinds and colors set in all sorts of different patterns—­stars, triangles, diamonds, and squares.

“That’s the border,” shouted Ann, “and over there somewhere we’ll find the person the Queen said would help us get back to Aunt Jane.  Come on!” As she spoke she bounded off across the field, the two boys after her, and in less time than it takes to tell it they had run through the tall yellow grass, jumped the border, and stood upon the edge of the wood.