But though he was a god, the goddess, his fair mother, was not deceived, and knew all that he had been doing while away. So she said to him: “Whence come you and what wild adventures have you had, you cunning rogue. Where have you been all night long, clothed in your impudence? What have you done since you departed hence? Apollo will soon pass within this gate and bind your tender body in a chain inextricably tight and fast as fate, unless you can delude the god again. A pretty torment are you for gods and men.” “Dear mother,” the sly Hermes replied, “why scold and bother as if I were like other babes of my age, and understood nothing. I have hatched a scheme in my subtle brain which, while the sacred stars round heaven are rolled, will profit you and me, nor shall our lot be as you counsel, without gifts or food, to spend our lives in this obscure abode. We will leave this shadow-peopled cave and live among the gods, and pass each day in high communion, sharing their great wealth, and from the portion which Jove gave to Phœbus I will snatch my share away, and if he should find me out I’ll countermine him by a deeper plan. I’ll pierce the Pythian temple walls, though stout, and sack the fane of everything I can—cauldrons and tripods, each golden cup and every brazen pan, all the wrought tapestries and the gay garments.” So they talked together. Meanwhile the Day, ethereal-born, arose out of the flood of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men. Apollo passed toward the sacred wood, which from the inmost depths of its green glen echoes the voice of Neptune, and there stood on the same spot in green Onchestus that same old man, the vine-dresser, who was employed hedging his vineyard there. Latona’s glorious son began: “Pray tell me, ancient hedger of Onchestus green, whether a drove of kine has passed this way, all heifers with crooked horns? For they have been stolen from the herd in high Pieria, where a black bull was fed apart, between two woody mountains in a neighboring glen, though four fierce dogs guarded them. And what is strange, the author of this theft has stolen all the fatted heifers, but the four dogs and the black bull are left. They were stolen last night at set of sun, of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft. Now tell me, old man, born before the world began, have you seen any one pass with the cows?” The old man replied: “My friend, it would require no common skill justly to speak of everything I see. On various purposes of good or ill many pass by my vineyard, and for me it is difficult to know the invisible thoughts which may be in all those many minds. Thus much alone I can certainly say. I tilled these vines until the decline of day, and then I thought I saw, but dare not speak with certainty of such a wondrous thing, a child who could scarcely have been born a week, closely following those fair-horned cattle. And in his hand he held a polished stick, and, as on purpose, he walked wavering from one side to the other