But still through the nicks in the shutters he could hear the click of
thimbles, and little mouse voices singing--
[Illustration]
"No more twist! No more twist!"
Simpkin came away from the shop and went home, considering in his mind. He
found the poor old tailor without fever, sleeping peacefully.
Then Simpkin went on tip-toe and took a little parcel of silk out of the
tea-pot, and looked at it in the moonlight; and he felt quite ashamed of
his badness compared with those good little mice!
When the tailor awoke in the morning, the first thing which he saw upon
the patchwork quilt, was a skein of cherry-coloured twisted silk, and
beside his bed stood the repentant Simpkin!
[Illustration]
"Alack, I am worn to a ravelling," said the Tailor of Gloucester, "but I
have my twist!"
The sun was shining on the snow when the tailor got up and dressed, and
came out into the street with Simpkin running before him.
The starlings whistled on the chimney stacks, and the throstles and robins
sang--but they sang their own little noises, not the words they had sung
in the night.
"Alack," said the tailor, "I have my twist; but no more strength--nor
time--than will serve to make me one single button-hole; for this is
Christmas Day in the Morning! The Mayor of Gloucester shall be married by
noon--and where is his cherry-coloured coat?"
He unlocked the door of the little shop in Westgate Street, and Simpkin
ran in, like a cat that expects something.
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