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