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The Magical Music
by
This performance the Queen kept up all the afternoon, writing as fast as she could, and only stopping long enough to read the answers which the slaves brought her as they returned. At last, they came back, bringing with them her last notes unopened, saying that the Prince had gone to sleep. At which intelligence she shed some tears, but then, like a sensible Queen, had her supper, and went to bed.
The next day the marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place, and it was a glorious affair indeed. Twenty-four historians were appointed by the Crown to write the history of it; they were paid by the quarter, and it took them a long time, I can assure you.
The whole of the wedding-day, the festivities were kept up, and all the eating, and drinking, and merry-making, was at the royal expense. During the day and night everybody spent, and gave away to the poor, all the wealth they possessed, and in the morning it was all paid back to them by the royal Treasurer. In the country, the people feasted grandly on their own herds, and drank up their own wines, and they were also reimbursed by the Crown.
But the great feature of the royal marriage was the decree, proclaimed at noon of the wedding-day, that all persons married on that day should be set up in housekeeping, free of expense!
Never, in the history of that or any other kingdom, were priests kept so busy as those in this city. They worked as hard as they could, but at three o’clock they were obliged to commence marrying the folks by squads; and so, before suppertime, there was not a bachelor or maid in the whole city,–excepting an old bobstay spinner,–one of the crossest of old maids, who hated men so much that she had not spoken to one for forty years; and a crabbed bachelor, who despised women so completely that he never had his clothes washed, because it would have to be done by females.
At midnight, the priest Ali-bo-babem was called out of his bed, and found at the door, desiring to be married, the crabbed old bachelor and the cross old maid. These two did not live long, but all the rest of the people were very happy for many years.
About three o’clock of the morning after the great wedding-day, the Giant Tur-il-i-ra arrived at his castle gate. He had walked all the way home, and he felt in such a good humor that the road never seemed so short to him before. But, for some reason, he could not open the gate. There seemed to be an unusual number of locks and bolts, and the big key he carried did not seem to fit any of the numerous key-holes. He could easily reach over and undo the bolts, but the locks were too much for him; and, I am sorry to say, he got a little angry, and was about to take his club and smash his magnificent gate, when his wife, who had been sitting up for him, and had heard the noise he had been making, came down and let him in.
They went together into the great hall, and there Tur-il-i-ra sat down before the fire. His wife, who thought a great deal of the good Giant, was sorry to see that he was silent and rather grum.
“What makes you look so, my dear?” said she. “Did you not have a good time?”
“O yes,” said he, “good enough,–but that gate put me out. I wonder what’s the matter with it. It’s got to be fixed. I won’t be bothered and worried in this way.”
“It shall all be made right in the morning,” said his wife. “But are you sure you did not take anything that disagreed with you while you were away?”
“Perhaps I did,” said he. “It might have been the mince-pies. They told me they were temperance pies, but I don’t believe it.”
“How many did you eat, my dear?” asked the good Giantess.
“Well, I don’t know,” said her husband. “About ten or eleven hundred, I suppose.”
“That was too many for you,” said his wife. “And I think you had better go to bed, and I will bring you something to make you feel better.”
So the Giant went to bed, and as he slowly ascended the stairs, he winked to himself with his right eye. And his wife, she went into the kitchen, and winked to herself with her left eye.
After a while she came up to the Giant, and brought a barrel of hot chamomile tea; and when he had drank it all, she tucked him in, nice and warm, and the next morning he felt as well as ever.