And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladle.
Even the barrels of beer were not safe from them. They would gnaw a hole in the barrel head, and into this hole some master rat would thrust his tail, and when he withdrew it dripping with beer all his friends and relatives would crowd around and each would have a suck at the tail.
They were bad enough in the daytime, but they were still worse at night. Then they were busy everywhere—in the walls and ceilings, and also in the rooms from cellar to garret. There was such a chase and a rummage, and such a squeaking and squealing, and such a noise as of gimlets, pincers and saws that a deaf man could not have rested for one hour together. The people could hardly hear themselves think, and many a mother felt obliged to sit up and keep watch over her children lest some big ugly rat should run across their faces.
Cats and dogs, poison and traps were of no avail. Nor were prayers any more effective. Of course many of the rats were killed, yet others constantly came to take the place of the dead ones. The mayor and the town council were at their wits’ end. They were sitting one day in the town hall racking their brains, when a queer-looking stranger arrived in the place. As he tramped up the chief street he played the bagpipes, pausing in his playing now and then to sing this refrain:
“Who lives shall see
This is he,
The ratcatcher.”
He was a tall, gawky fellow with swarthy skin, a crooked nose, a long moustache, and piercing eyes. His broad-brimmed felt hat had a scarlet cock’s feather stuck into its band, and there was not a color of the rainbow that could not be found in his jacket and breeches. A leather belt girded his waist, and on his feet were sandals fastened by thongs passed round his legs. He stopped in the great market-place before the town hall and went on with his piping and singing. The town beadle heard the purport of the song, and asked the stranger if he could rid the town of the rats with which it was overrun.
“Yes,” was the reply, “if you will make it worth my while.”
Then the beadle hurried off to report the stranger’s words to the council. As he approached their place of meeting the mayor was saying: “What to do, I know not. My poor head aches, I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.”