And now in a garret there were lights and sounds of dancing, and cats came from over the way.
"Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle! All the cats in Gloucester—except me," said Simpkin.
Under the wooden eaves the starlings and sparrows sang of Christmas pies; the jack-daws woke up in the Cathedral tower; and although it was the middle of the night the throstles and robins sang; the air was quite full of little twittering tunes.
But it was all rather provoking to poor hungry Simpkin!
Particularly he was vexed with some little shrill voices from behind a wooden lattice. I think that they were bats, because they always have very small voices—especially in a black frost, when they talk in their sleep, like the Tailor of Gloucester.
They said something mysterious that sounded like—
"Buz, quoth the blue fly, hum, quoth the bee,
Buz and hum they cry, and so do we!"
and Simpkin went away shaking his ears as if he had a bee in his bonnet.
