Uncle Joe's Stories

by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne

The Chief Justice, seeing that this result had been obtained in some mysterious way, was too well satisfied with it to trouble his daughter by inquiries into the means she had used or the agencies she had employed. It is due to the old man to say that he suspected nothing unlawful, but even had he entertained such suspicions, I do not know that he would have deemed it necessary to take any action upon them, since, whatever the means taken, the end secured had been one so desirable.

With all his faults Pigspud was not without generosity, and now that he saw good prospects of prosperity before him and his house, he bethought himself of his old associates, Binks and Chinks, and determined, if possible, to effect their release from unmerited imprisonment.

With this object he went to his daughter in the afternoon of the day before the wedding, representing to her that it would be a graceful act on her part, and one likely to be popular with the people, if she were to persuade the king to release his old ministers and their families, and invite them to be present at his approaching nuptials.

Ophelia was somewhat vexed at the request. She hardly felt as yet sufficiently secure in her position to run any risks, and, although she would have been glad enough to have aided in the release of the Prime Minister and the Lord Chamberlain, an indefinable something seemed to tell her that in the daughters of the two ministers she would find enemies who had better not be placed in any position in which they could possibly do harm.

She knew the power which jealousy has over the female mind—that is to say, in Pigmyland, though, of course, in ordinary countries, such a feeling is unknown to the softer sex—and she feared she knew not what. However, she felt that it would be ungracious, as well as ungrateful, to refuse her father his first request, and she, therefore, told Famcram that the prisoners must be released in order to be present at the wedding next day. The king raised no objection, but did as he was told, and orders were immediately sent to the dungeons for the liberation of the ex-ministers and their families, at which they were, of course, delighted; but some difficulty was experienced after their release from prison, as to where they should go to, inasmuch as King Famcram had appropriated all their property. As, however, their respective houses remained unoccupied, they were permitted to return thither, and make themselves as comfortable as they could. The ladies of the party were the worst off, and great were their complaints of total inability to appear in proper dresses at the festivities on the ensuing day.

Ophelia felt for their difficulty, and did all she could to remove it, supplying them with many articles of dress from her own wardrobe, and assuring them of her sincere sympathy for their sufferings in the past, and her readiness to promote their happiness in the future. So when the morning fixed for the royal marriage dawned, all seemed likely to go well, and content reigned upon the face of every Pigmy.

Owing to a conflagration which, at a subsequent period, destroyed all the records in the public offices of that country, I am unable to supply my readers with a full and accurate account of all the details of the interesting ceremony which united Ophelia to her royal husband.

Various accounts were written and published at the time, but none of them by authority, and I am unwilling to trust to unauthorized narratives when dealing with a subject of such immense importance. That which it most concerns us to know, however, is that the wedding actually took place, which fact having been once ascertained, even the appearance of the bride and the dresses of the bridesmaids become matters of comparatively little moment Of this great fact there is happily no doubt.

King Famcram was legally married to Ophelia Pigspud after the custom of Pigmy marriages, and the maiden was undoubtedly Queen of the Pigmies. Her first act was at once gracious and becoming. She caused Binks and Chinks to be reinstated in their former offices, and arranged that pecuniary compensation should be given them for the losses they had sustained. Furthermore, she appointed Euphemia and Araminta Binks, together with the three daughters of the lord chamberlain, Asphalia, Bettina, and Paraphernalia, as her ladies in waiting, and promised to them and to herself that the court should ever be made the scene of gaieties and entertainments to which it had long been a stranger.

But however good were the motives of Ophelia, however kind her feeling towards these five young ladies, however pleasant her plans might have appeared to them under other circumstances, I am sorry to say that they neither believed in nor appreciated them.