I told a tale, to Jim’s delight, Of where the tom-cats go by night, And how when moonlight come they went Among the chimneys black and bent, From roof to roof, from house to house, With little baskets full of mouse All red and white, both joint and chop Like meat out of a butcher’s shop; Then all along the wall they creep And everyone is fast asleep, And honey-hunting moths go by, And by the bread-batch crickets cry; Then on they hurry, never waiting To lawyer’s backyard cellar grating Where Jaggard’s cat, with clever paw, Unhooks a broke-brick’s secret door; Then down into the cellar black, Across the wood slug’s slimy track, Into an old cask’s quiet hollow, Where they’ve got seats for what’s to follow; Then each tom-cat lights little candles, And O, the stories and the scandals, And O, the songs and Christmas carols, And O, the milk from little barrels. They light a fire fit for roasting (And how good mouse-meat smells when toasting), Then down they sit to merry feast While moon goes west and sun comes east. Sometimes they make so merry there Old lawyer come to head of stair To ’fend with fist and poker took firm His parchments channelled by the bookworm, And all his deeds, and all his packs Of withered ink and sealing wax; And there he stands, with candle raised, And listens like a man amazed, Or like a ghost a man stands dumb at, He says, ’Hush! Hush! I’m sure there’s summat!’ He hears outside the brown owl call, He hears the death-tick tap the wall, The gnawing of the wainscot mouse, The creaking up and down the house, The unhooked window’s hinges ranging, The sounds that say the wind is changing. At last he turns, and shakes his head, ’It’s nothing, I’ll go back to bed.’ And just then Mrs Jaggard came To view and end her Jimmy’s shame. She made one rush and gi’m a bat And shook him like a dog a rat. ’I can’t turn round but what you’re straying. I’ll give you tales and gipsy playing. I’ll give you wand’ring off like this And listening to whatever ’t is, You’ll laugh the little side of the can, You’ll have the whip for this, my man; And not a bite of meat nor bread You’ll touch before you go to bed. Some day you’ll break your mother’s heart, After God knows she’s done her part, Working her arms off day and night Trying to keep your collars white. Look at your face, too, in the street. What dirty filth ’ve you found to eat? Now don’t you blubber here, boy, or I’ll give you sum’t to blubber for.’ She snatched him off from where we stand And knocked the pear-core from his hand, And looked at me, ’You Devil’s limb, How dare you talk to Jaggard’s Jim; You drunken, poaching, boozing brute, you. If Jaggard was a man he’d shoot you.’ She glared all this, but didn’t speak, She gasped, white hollows in her cheek; Jimmy was writhing, screaming wild, The shoppers thought I’d killed the child.