Amongst my other considerations, I have often thought that if I had gone to the top of the Black Mountains northward of Brandleguarp, in the very lightest time, I might have seen the sun; but these mountains were so elevated, that our lightest time was only the gilded glimmering of their tops, having never seen so much light on them as totally to eclipse all the stars, of which we had always the same in view, but in different positions.
_Peter's children provided for--Youwarkee's death--How the king and queen spent their time--Peter grows melancholy--Wants to get to England--Contrives means--Is taken up at sea._
I HAD now been at Brandleguarp ten years, and my children were all provided for by the king but Dickey, as fast as they were qualified for employment, and such as were fit for it were married off to the best alliances in the country; so that I had only to sit down and see everything I had put my hand to prosper, and not an evil eye in the three kingdoms cast at me: but about my eleventh or twelfth year, my wife falling into a lingering disorder, at the end of two years it carried her off. This was the first real affliction I had suffered for many years, and so soured my temper, that I became fit for nothing, and it was painful to me even to think of business.
The king's marriage had produced four children, three sons and a daughter, which he would frequently tell me were mine.
Old Oniwheske was dead, and the king and queen divided their whole time equally between Brandleguarp and Apsillo; but he was building a palace at my new colony, which by this time was grown to a vast city, and was called Stygena, in compliment to the queen; and this new palace was designed to receive the court one-third of the year, as it lay almost at equal distance between both his other palaces. This method, which his majesty took, at my persuasion, on the death of Oniwheske, though it went against the grain at first, was now grown so habitual to him, and he saw his own interest so much in it in the love and esteem it procured him from the people, that at last he wanted no spur to it.
My melancholy for the death of my wife, which I hoped time would wear off, rather gained ground upon me; and though I was as much regarded as ever by the whole court, yet it grew troublesome to me even to be asked my advice; and it not only surprised those about me, but even myself, to see the same genius, without any visible natural decay, in so short a time, from the most sprightly and enterprising, become the most phlegmatic and inactive.