from a height
into a clear deep pool. Really she was listening to make sure that no
hunter and no lovers were near them in the wood, but she only heard the
songs of the water and the birds, no voices, or cry of hounds, or fallen
twig cracking under a footstep.

At last, when she was quite certain that nobody was near, she whispered,
and told Theseus how her husband, before he disappeared, had taken her
to this place, and shown her the great moss-grown boulder, and said
that, when his son could lift that stone away, he would find certain
tokens, and that he must then do what the gods put into his heart.
Theseus listened eagerly, and said, 'If my father lifted that stone, and
placed under it certain tokens, I also can lift it, perhaps not yet, but
some day I shall be as strong a man as my father.' Then he set himself
to move the stone, gradually putting out all his force, but it seemed
rooted in the earth, though he tried it now on one side and now on
another. At last he flung himself at his mother's feet, with his head in
the grass, and lay without speaking. His breath came hard and quick,
and his hands were bleeding. Aethra laid her hand on his long hair, and
was silent. 'I shall not lose my boy this year,' she thought.

They were long in that lonely place, but at last Theseus rose, and
kissed his mother, and stretched his arms. 'Not to-day!' he said, but
his mother thought in her heart, 'Not for many a day, I hope!' Then they
walked home to the house of Pittheus, saying little, and when they had
taken supper, Theseus said that he would go to bed and dream of better
fortune. So he arose, and went to his own chamber, which was built apart
in the court of the palace, and soon Aethra too went to sleep, not
unhappy, for her boy, she thought, would not leave her for a long time.

But in the night Theseus arose, and put on his shoes, and his smock, and
a great double mantle. He girt on his sword of bronze, and went into the
housekeeper's chamber, where he took a small skin of wine, and some
food. These he placed in a wallet which he slung round his neck by a
cord, and, lastly he stole out of the court, and walked to the lonely
glen, and to the pool in the burn near which the great stone lay. Here
he folded his purple mantle of fine wool round him, and lay down to
sleep in the grass, with his sword lying near his hand.

When he awoke the clear blue morning light was round him, and all the
birds were singing their song to th