‘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 [p134 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.