Part 32

'Oh,' said the other, 'it's a horrid boy. Let's scurry away.'

'I'm not a horrid boy,' said Sep. 'I'm the seventh son of a seventh son.'

'Oh,' said Mrs. Squirrel, 'of course that makes all the difference. Have some nuts?'

'Rather,' said Sep. 'At least I mean, yes, if you please.'

So the squirrels brought nuts down to him, and when he had eaten as many as he wanted they filled his pockets, and then in return he chopped all the lower boughs off the chestnut-tree, so that boys who were not seventh sons could not climb up and interfere with the squirrels' housekeeping arrangements.

Then they parted, the best of friends, and Sep went on.

'I haven't found my fortune yet,' said he, 'but I've made a friend or two.'

And just as he was saying that, he turned a corner of the road and met an old gentleman in a fur-lined coat riding a fine, big, grey horse.

'Hullo!' said the gentleman. 'Who are you, and where are you off to so bright and early?'

'I'm Septimus Septimusson,' said Sep, 'and I'm going to seek my fortune.'

'And you've taken an axe to help you carve your way to glory?'

'No,' said Sep, 'I found it, and I suppose some one lost it. So I'm bringing it along in case I meet him.'

'Heavy, isn't it?' said the old gentleman.

'Yes,' said Sep.

'Then I'll carry it for you,' said the old gentleman, 'for it's one that my head forester lost yesterday. And now come along with me, for you're the boy I've been looking for for seven years--an honest boy and the seventh son of a seventh son.'

So Sep went home with the gentleman, who was a great lord in that country, and he lived in that lord's castle and was taught everything that a gentleman ought to know. And in return he told the lord all about the ways of birds and beasts--for as he understood their talk he knew more about them than any one else in that country. And the lord wrote it all down in a book, and half the people said it was wonderfully clever, and the other half said it was nonsense, and how could he know. This was fame, and the lord was very pleased. But though the old lord was so famous he would not leave his castle, for he had a hump that an enchanter had fastened on to him, and he couldn't bear to be seen with it.

'But you'll get rid of it for me some day, my boy,' he used to say. 'No one but the seventh son of a seventh son and an honest boy can do it. So all the doctors say.'

So Sep grew up. And when he was twenty-one--straight as a lance and handsome as a picture--the old lord said to him.

'My boy, you've been like a son to me, but now it's time you got married and had sons of your own. Is there any girl you'd like to marry?'

'No,' said Sep, 'I never did care much for girls.'

The old lord laughed.

'Then you must set out again and seek your fortune once more,' he said, 'because no man has really found his fortune till he's found the lady who is his heart's lady. Choose the best horse in the stable, and off you go, lad, and my blessing go with you.'

So Sep chose a good red horse and set out, and he rode straight to the great city, that shone golden across the plain, and when he got there he found every one crying.

'Why, whatever is the matter?' said Sep, reining in the red horse in front of a smithy, where the apprentices were crying on to the fires, and the smith was dropping tears on the anvil.

'Why the Princess is dying,' said the blacksmith blowing his nose. 'A nasty, wicked magician--he had a spite against the King, and he got at the Princess when she was playing ball in the garden, and now she's blind and deaf and dumb. And she won't eat.'

'And she'll die,' said the first apprentice.

'And she is such a dear,' said the other apprentice.

Sep sat still on the red horse thinking.