GLE-WAGGLE

CATSKIN

STUPID'S CRIES

THE LAMBTON WORM

THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM

THE PRINCESS OF CANTERBURY

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NOTES AND REFERENCES

Full Page Illustrations

TAMLANE

THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY

TATTERCOATS

THE OLD WITCH

THE CASTLE OF MELVALES

THE LITTLE BULL-CALF

THE LAMBTON WORM

WARNING TO CHILDREN

MORE ENGLISH FAIRY TALES

The Pied Piper

Newtown, or Franchville, as 't was called of old, is a sleepy little
town, as you all may know, upon the Solent shore. Sleepy as it is now,
it was once noisy enough, and what made the noise was--rats. The place
was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in. There wasn't
a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but they ate their
way into it. Not a cheese but they gnawed it hollow, not a sugar
puncheon but they cleared out. Why the very mead and beer in the barrels
was not safe from them. They'd gnaw a hole in the top of the tun, and
down would go one master rat's tail, and when he brought it up round
would crowd all the friends and cousins, and each would have a suck at
the tail.

Had they stopped here it might have been borne. But the squeaking and
shrieking, the hurrying and scurrying, so that you could neither hear
yourself speak nor get a wink of good honest sleep the live-long night!
Not to mention that, Mamma must needs sit up, and keep watch and ward
over baby's cradle, or there'd have been a big ugly rat running across
the poor little fellow's face, and doing who knows what mischief.

Why didn't the good people of the town have cats? Well they did, and
there was a fair stand-up fight, but in the end the rats were too many,
and the pussies were regularly driven from the field. Poison, I hear you
say? Why, they poisoned so many that it fairly bred a plague.
Ratcatchers! Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to
the Land's End that hadn't tried his luck. But do what they might, cats
or poison, terrier or traps, there seemed to be more rats than ever, and
every day a fresh rat was cocking his tail or pricking his whiskers.

The Mayor and the town council were at their wits' end. As they were
sitting one day in the town hall racking their poor brains, and
bewailing their hard fate, who should run in but the town beadle.
"Please your Honour," says he, "here is a very queer fellow come to
town. I don't rightly know what to make of him." "Sho