‘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 [p141 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 feeding his wife as one feeds a baby that they saw that she was blind.
And then all the story had to be told.
‘Well, well,’ said the fisherman, ‘you and your wife bide here with us. I daresay I’ll catch that old sinner in my nets one of these fine days.’ But he never did. And Sep and his wife lived with the old people. And they were happy after a fashion—but of an evening Sep used to wander and wonder, and wonder and wander by the sea-shore, wondering as he [p142 wandered whether he wouldn’t ever have the luck to catch that fish.