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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
THE PIED PIPER | 1 |
HAMELIN | 1 |
ROBERT BROWNING | 1 |
KATE GREENAWAY | 1 |
AND NEW YORK | 1 |
THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN | 1 |
I. | 1 |
II. | 1 |
III. | 1 |
IV. | 1 |
V. | 2 |
VI. | 2 |
VII. | 2 |
VIII. | 3 |
IX. | 3 |
X. | 4 |
XI. | 4 |
XII. | 4 |
XIII. | 4 |
XIV. | 5 |
XV. | 6 |
OF
BY
ILLUSTRATED BY
LONDON
Frederick Warne and Co., Ltd.
Printed in U.S.A.
Hamelin Town’s
in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser,
deep and wide,
Washes its wall
on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot
you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred
years ago,
To see the townsfolk
suffer so
From
vermin, was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed
the cats,
And bit the babies
in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses
out of the vats.
And licked the
soup from the cook’s own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted
sprats,
Made nests inside men’s
Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s
chats,
By drowning their
speaking
With shrieking
and squeaking
In fifty different sharps
and flats.
At last the people in a body
To
the Town Hall came flocking:
“Tis clear,” cried
they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
And
as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined
with ermine
For dolts that can’t
or won’t determine
What’s best to rid us
of our vermin!
You hope, because you’re
old and obese,
To find in the furry civic
robe ease?
Rouse up, sirs! Give
your brains a racking
To find the remedy we’re
lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we’ll
send you packing!”
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.
An hour they sate in council,
At length the
Mayor broke silence:
“For a guilder I’d
my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were
a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one
rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head
aches again,
I’ve scratched it so,
and all in vain
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!”
Just as he said this, what
should hap
At the chamber door but a
gentle tap?
“Bless us,” cried
the Mayor, “what’s that?”
(With the Corporation as he
sat,
Looking little though wondrous
fat;
Nor brighter was his eye,
“Come in!”—the
Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest
figure!
His queer long coat from heel
to head
Was half of yellow and half
of red,
And he himself was tall and
thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each
like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet
swarthy skin
No tuft on cheek nor beard
on chin,
But lips where smile went
out and in;
There was no guessing his
kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint
attire.
Quoth one: “It’s
as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of
Doom’s tone,
Had walked this way from his
painted tombstone!”
He advanced to the council-table:
And, “Please your honours,”
said he, “I’m able,
By means of a secret charm,
to draw
All creatures living beneath
the sun,
That creep or swim or fly
or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people
harm,
The mole and toad and newt
and viper;
And people call me the Pied
Piper.”
(And here they noticed round
his neck
A scarf of red and yellow
stripe,
To match with his coat of
the self-same cheque;
And at the scarf’s end
hung a pipe;
And his fingers they noticed
were ever straying
As if impatient to be playing
Upon his pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
“Yet,” said he,
“poor Piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June, from his huge swarms
of gnats,
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats:
And as for what your brain
bewilders,
If I can rid your town of
rats
Will you give me a thousand
guilders?”
“One? fifty thousand!”—was
the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and
Corporation.
Into the street the Piper
stept,
Smiling first
a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe
the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips
he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp
eyes twinkled,
Like a candle-flame where
salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes
the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to
a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to
a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the
You should have heard the
Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they
rocked the steeple
“Go,” cried the
Mayor, “and get long poles,
Poke out the nests and block
up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and
builders,
And leave in our town not
even a trace
Of the rats!”—when
suddenly up the face
Of the Piper perked in the
market-place,
With a, “First, if you
please, my thousand guilders!”
A thousand guilders!
The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare
havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave,
Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest
butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering
fellow
With a gipsy coat of red and
yellow!
“Beside,” quoth
the Mayor with a knowing wink,
“Our business was done
at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin
sink,
And what’s dead can’t
come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not
the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you
something to drink,
And a matter of money to put
in your poke;
But as for the guilders, what
we spoke
Of them, as you very well
know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made
us thrifty.
A thousand guilders!
Come, take fifty!”
The Piper’s face fell,
and he cried,
“No trifling! I
can’t wait, beside!
I’ve promised to visit
by dinner-time
Bagdad, and accept the prime
Of the Head-Cook’s pottage,
all he’s rich in,
For having left, in the Caliph’s
kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no
survivor:
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don’t think
I’ll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a
passion
May find me pipe after another
fashion.”
“How?” cried the
Mayor, “d’ ye think I brook
Being worse treated than a
Cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture
piebald?
You threaten us, fellow?
Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till
you burst!”
Once more he stept into the street,
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes
(such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician’s cunning
Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling,
that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is
scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls.
Tripping
and skipping,
ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
The Mayor was dumb, and the
Council stood
As if they were changed into
blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or
cry
To the children merrily skipping
by.
—Could only follow
with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper’s
back.
But how the Mayor was on the
rack,
And the wretched Council’s
bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the
High Street
To where the Weser rolled
its waters
Right in the way of their
sons and daughters!
However he turned from South
to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his
steps addressed,
And after him the children
pressed;
Great was the joy in every
breast.
“He never can cross
that mighty top!
He’s forced to let the
piping drop,
And we shall see our children
stop!”
When, lo, as they reached
the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly
hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and
the children followed,
And when all were in to the
very last,
The door in the mountain side
shut fast.
Did I say, all? No; One
Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into
many a burgher’s pate
A text which says
that Heaven’s gate
Opes to the rich
at as easy rate
As the needle’s eye
takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West,
North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word
of mouth,
Wherever it was
men’s lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart’s
content,
If he’d only return
the way he went,
And bring the
children behind him.
But when they saw ’twas
a lost endeavour,
And Piper and dancers were
gone for ever,
They made a decree that lawyers
never
Should think their
records dated duly
If, after the day of the month
and year,
These words did not as well
appear,
“And so long after what
happened here
On the Twenty-second
of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:”
And the better in memory to
fix
The place of the children’s
last retreat,
They called it, the Pied Piper’s
Street—
Where any one playing on pipe
or tabor,
Was sure for the future to
lose his labour.
Nor suffered they hostelry
or tavern
To shock with
mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of
the cavern
They wrote the
story on a column,
And on the great church-window
painted
The same, to make the world
acquainted
How their children were stolen
away,
And there it stands to this
very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there’s
a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours
lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers
having risen
Out of some subterraneous
prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty
band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick
land,
But how or why, they don’t
understand.
So, Willy, let me and you
be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially
pipers!
And, whether they pipe us
free from rats or from mice,
If we’ve promised them
aught, let us keep our promise!
First published 1888
Original wood block designs
engraved
by Edward Evans Limited