THE
FIR-TREE FAIRY BOOK
THE PIED PIPER
THERE is a sleepy little town by the seashore, which for a time, long ago, was decidedly noisy. But the noise was not so much due to the number of people in the place, or the traffic on the streets, as it was to the fact that the town had been invaded by a horde of rats. Such an invasion had never been seen before nor ever will be seen again. The place was scarcely worth living in, so infested was it with these rats. The people found them in their breeches or petticoats when they put on their clothes in the morning, and it was nothing unusual to discover a rat’s nest in one’s shoes or pockets, or in one’s Sunday hat or bonnet.
The rats were great black creatures that ran boldly through the streets in broad daylight, and swarmed all over the houses. There was not a barn, or a cornrick, or a storeroom, or a cupboard, but they gnawed their way into it.
They fought the dogs and killed the cats
And bit the babies in their cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats