Out of doors the market folks went trudging through the snow to buy their
geese and turkeys, and to bake their Christmas pies; but there would be no
Christmas dinner for Simpkin and the poor old Tailor of Gloucester.

The tailor lay ill for three days and nights; and then it was Christmas
Eve, and very late at night. The moon climbed up over the roofs and
chimneys, and looked down over the gateway into College Court. There were
no lights in the windows, nor any sound in the houses; all the city of
Gloucester was fast asleep under the snow.

And still Simpkin wanted his mice, and he mewed as he stood beside the
four-post bed.

[Illustration]

But it is in the old story that all the beasts can talk, in the night
between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the morning (though there are
very few folk that can hear them, or know what it is that they say).

When the Cathedral clock struck twelve there was an answer--like an echo
of the chimes--and Simpkin heard it, and came out of the tailor's door,
and wandered about in the snow.

From all the roofs and gables and old wooden houses in Gloucester came a
thousand merry voices singing the old Christmas rhymes--all the old songs
that ever I heard of, and some that I don't know, like Whittington's
bells.

[Illustration]