Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/324

278 a plenteous feast and bade them bring the babe. So the parents brought him and he was baptized and all feasted and made merry to their heart's content. On the next day Marko the Rich drove again to the village and stopping at the hut of the poor peasant, spoke kindly to him and flattered him. "Peasant," he said, "thou art a miserably poor man without stick or stone of thine own or wherewith to support thy family, and thou canst not properly care for this little son of thine. Why not give him to me? I will bring him up in a decent manner and as for thee, his father, I will give thee, for thy living, a thousand roubles."

The poor serf pondered the matter well, and at last allowed himself to be persuaded. The merchant, accordingly, gave him the one thousand roubles, took the babe, wrapped him warmly in his own coat of fox-fur, got into his sledge and drove away.

Now it was winter-time, the season of greatest cold, and the ground was covered deep with snow. After they had gone several versts from the village, Marko the Rich stopped the sledge, gave the child to his trusty driver and bade him throw him into a deep ravine whose steep brink they were passing. The man did as he was bidden, and the merchant,