Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/163

 garden, at whose gates no guards were set. At last they did so, and came to the first of the three-and-thirty towers, where they found an aged woman who looked as if she was the mother of a goodly son. Her dress was of silver thread mixed with a little silk, and her bearing had so much dignity that the visitors from Kiev found themselves bowing down before her almost without knowing what they were doing.

"Hail to thee!" said Nikitich, "thou honourable mother of the young Lord Diuk."

"I am not my lord's mother," said the ancient woman, "I am the keeper of his cows."

Then the talesmen were so much filled with vexation and shame that they left the palace garden and went out into the open plain, where they pitched a tent and went to bed without saying a word to each other.

On the next morning they came again and drew near to the second of the three-and-thirty towers, where they found an aged woman of comely face clad in cloth of silver and gold.

"Hail to thee!" said Nikitich brightly, "thou honourable mother of the young Lord Diuk."

"I am not my lord's mother," said the aged woman, "I am his washerwoman."

Swallowing their confusion the three talesmen went on, wondering no longer that Diuk had mistaken the Princess Apraxia for the washerwoman of Prince Vladimir; and they fared in the same manner before the cook, the women of the bedchamber, the