First and loudest the cocks cried out: "Dame, get up, and bake your pies!"

"Oh, dilly, dilly, dilly!" sighed Simpkin.

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.

[Illustration]

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!"