Children's stories, English; Magic -- Juvenile fiction; Short stories
'Arrest that person,' said the King, pointing to Taykin. 'I suppose your
charms are of a permanent nature, madam.'
'Quite,' said the Fairy, 'at least they never go till there's no longer
any use for them.'
So the Magician was shut up in an enormously high tower, and allowed to
play with magic; but none of his spells could act outside the tower so
he was never able to pass the extra double guard that watched outside
night and day. The King would have liked to have the Magician executed
but the White Witch warned him that this would never do.
'Don't you see,' she said, 'he's the only person who can make the
Princess beautiful again. And he'll do it some day. But don't you go
_asking_ him to do it. He'll never do anything to oblige you. He's that
sort of man.'
So the years rolled on. The Magician stayed in the tower and did magic
and was very bored,--for it is dull to take white rabbits out of your
hat, and your hat out of nothing when there's no one to see you.
Prince Fortunatus was such a stupid little boy that he got lost quite
early in the story, and went about the country saying his name was
James, which it wasn't. A baker's wife found him and adopted him, and
sold the diamond buttons of his little overcoat, for three hundred
pounds, and as she was a very honest woman she put two hundred away for
James to have when he grew up.
The years rolled on. Aura continued to be hideous, and she was very
unhappy, till on her twentieth birthday her married cousin Belinda came
to see her. Now Belinda had been made ugly in her cradle too, so she
could sympathise as no one else could.
'But _I_ got out of it all right, and so will you,' said Belinda. 'I'm
sure the first thing to do is to find a magician.'
'Father banished them all twenty years ago,' said Aura behind her veil,
'all but the one who uglified me.'
'Then I should go to _him_,' said beautiful Belinda. 'Dress up as a
beggar maid, and give him fifty pounds to do it. Not more, or he may
suspect that you're not a beggar maid. It will be great fun. I'd go with
you only I promised Bellamant faithfully that I'd be home to lunch.' And
off she went in her mother-of-pearl coach, leaving Aura to look through
the bound volumes of _The Perfect Lady_ in the palace library, to find
out the proper costume for a beggar maid.
Now that very morning the Magician's old nurse had packed up a ham, and
some eggs, and some honey, and some apples, and a sweet bunch of
old-fashioned flowers, and borrowed the baker's boy to hold the horse
for her, and started off to see the Magician. It was forty years since
she'd seen him, but she loved him still, and now she thought she could
do him a good turn. She asked in the town for his address, and learned
that he lived in the Black Tower.
'But you'd best be careful,' the townsfolk said, 'he's a spiteful chap.'
'Bless you,' said the old nurse, 'he won't hurt me as nursed him when he
was a babe, in a plaid frock with the dearest little fat legs ever you
see.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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