Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/461



with a countenance pale with fear, to tell him that the rats had devoured all the corn in his granaries. And presently there came another servant, to inform him that a legion of rats was on its way to his palace. The Bishop looked from his window, and saw the road and fields dark with the moving multitude; neither hedge nor wall impeded their progress, as they made straight for his mansion. Then, full of terror, the prelate fled by his postern, and, taking a boat, was rowed out to his tower in the river, “——— and barr’d All the gates secure and hard.

“He laid him down, and closed his eyes; But soon a scream made him arise. He started, and saw two eyes of flame On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.

“He listen’d and look’d—it was only the cat; But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that, For she sat screaming, mad with fear, At the army of rats that were drawing near.

“For they have swum over the river so deep, And they have climb’d the shores so steep, And now by thousands up they crawl To the holes and windows in the wall.

“Down on his knees the Bishop fell, And faster and faster his beads did tell, As louder and louder, drawing near, The saw of their teeth without he could hear