Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/186

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before you and I were born there lived a king whose name was Dymion. He reigned with great wisdom, and had three sons, who were named respectively Clement, Peter, and John!

Now this king had a beautiful garden, and in this garden there was a wonderful apple-tree, on which golden apples grew. All at once there appeared to be a deficiency among the royal apples, and King Dymion became very sorrowful and very thin, lost his appetite, and fell altogether into a bad way.

At last he called his sons to him, and said,—

"My dear children, I want you to do me a great service, a robber comes to our royal garden every night and many of the golden apples are gone. To me this loss is as bad as death. Now, to him who catches the night robber I will give half my kingdom, and when I die he shall inherit the rest."

The sons listened to what their father said, talked it over, and agreed that they would try not to sleep at night, but look out for the robber.

That night Prince Clement, the eldest of the three, went into the garden, lay down on the grass, and of course fell asleep, in fact he slept so soundly that it was midday before he woke. He then got up, went