The Magic World

Excerpt: ...when a great roar sounded through the forest. 'Ah! would ye?' said the lion, and fastened teeth and claws in the great boar's back. The boar turned with a scream of rage, but the lion had got a good grip, and it did not loosen teeth or claws till the boar lay quiet. 'Is he dead?' asked Sep when he came to himself. 'Oh yes, he's dead right enough,' said the lion; but the wind came up puffing and blowing, and said: 'It's no good, he's got away again, and now he's a fish. I was just a minute too late to see what fish. An old oyster told me about it, only he hadn't the wit to notice what particular fish the scoundrel changed into.' So then Sep went back to the palace, and he said to the King: 'Let me marry the dear Princess, and we'll go out and seek our fortune. I've got to kill that Magician, and I'll do it too, or my name's not Septimus Septimusson. But it may take years and years, and I can't be away from the Princess all that time, because she won't eat unless I feed her. You see the difficulty, Sire?' The King saw it. And that very day Sep p 141 was married to the Princess in her green gown with the red roses on it, and they set out together. The wind went with them, and the wind, or something else, seemed to say to Sep, 'Go home, take your wife home to your mother.' So he did. He crossed the land and he crossed the sea, and he went up the red-brick path to his father's cottage, and he peeped in at the door and said: 'Father, mother, here's my wife.' They were so pleased to see him-for they had thought him dead, that they didn't notice the Princess at first, and when they did notice her they wondered at her beautiful face and her beautiful gown-but it wasn't till they had all settled down to supper-boiled rabbit it was-and they noticed Sep...