Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn, and burned them all.
"I' faith 'tis an excellent bonfire!" quoth he,
"And the country is greatly obliged to me
For ridding it, in these times forlorn,
Of rats that only consume the corn."
So then to his palace returned he,
And he sat down to supper merrily,
And he slept that night like an innocent man;
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.
In the morning, as he entered the hall
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all o'er him came,
For the rats had eaten it out of the frame.
As he looked there came a man from his farm;
He had a countenance white with alarm.
"My lord, I opened your granaries this morn,
And the rats had eaten all your corn."
Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be:
"Fly, my lord bishop, fly," quoth he;
"Ten thousand rats are coming this way;
The Lord forgive you for yesterday."
"I'll go to my tower on the Rhine," replied he,
"'Tis the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high, and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong, and the water deep."
Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away,
And he crossed the Rhine without delay,
And reached his tower, and barred with care
All the windows, doors, and loopholes there.
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 listened and looked: 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 climbed 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 he tell,
As louder and louder, drawing near,
The saw of their teeth without he could hear.
And in at the windows, and in at the door,
And through the walls by thousands they pour,
And down through the ceiling and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below;
And all at once at the bishop they go.
They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the bishop's bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him.
"I'm glad they ate him up," said Minnie, as soon as Mr. George had finished reading the poetry. "I am very glad indeed."
"Yes," said Rollo, "so am I."
"What a pleasant ride this is!" said Rollo, after a little pause. It was, indeed, a delightful ride. The road was carried along the bank of the river a short distance above the level of the water. It was very hard, and smooth, and level; and on the side of it opposite to the water, the land rose abruptly in a steep ascent, which was covered with forest trees. At the distance of about a mile before them, down the river, they could see the towers and battlements of the castle which they were going to visit, rising among the tops of the trees, on a projecting promontory.
"I like the ride very much," said Rollo; "but I don't care much about the castle. I'm tired of castles."
"So am I," said Mr. George; "but this is different from the rest. This is a castle restored."
"What do you mean by that?" said Rollo.
"Why, nearly all the old castles on the Rhine," replied Mr. George, "have been abandoned, and have gone to decay; or else, if they have been repaired or rebuilt, they have been finished and furnished in the fashion of modern times. But this castle of Rheinstein, which we are now going to see, has been restored, as nearly as possible, to its ancient condition. The rooms, and the courts, and the towers, and battlements are all arranged as they used to be in former ages; and the furniture contained within is of the ancient fashion. The chairs, and tables, and cabinets, and all the other articles, are such as the barons used when the castles on the Rhine were inhabited."
"Where do they get such things nowadays?" asked Rollo.
"Some of the furniture which they have in this castle," said Mr. George, "originally belonged there, and has been kept there all the time, for hundreds of years. When they repaired and rebuilt the castle, they repaired this furniture too, and put it in perfect order. Some other furniture they bought from other old castles which the owners did not intend to repair, and some they had made new, after the ancient patterns. But here we are, close under the castle."
A few minutes after this, the carriage stopped in the road at the entrance to a broad, gravelled pathway, which diverged from the road directly under the castle walls, and began to ascend at once through the woods in zigzags. Mr. George and his party got out, and began to go up. The carriage, in the mean time, went on a few steps farther, to a smooth and level place by the roadside, under the shade of some trees, there to await the return of the party from their visit to the castle above.
"Now, children," said Mr. George, "we will see how you can stand hard climbing."
Rollo and Minnie looked up, and they could see the walls and battlements of the castle, resting upon and crowning the crags and precipices of the rock, far above their heads.
The road, or rather the pathway,-for it was not wide enough for a carriage, and was besides too steep, and turned too many sharp corners for wheels,-was very smooth and hard, and the children ascended it without any difficulty. They stopped frequently to look up, for at every turn there was some new view of the walls or battlements, or towers above, or of the crags and precipices of the rock on which the various constructions of masonry rested. The cliffs and precipices in many places overhung the path, and seemed ready to fall. In fact, in one place, an immense mass had cracked off, and was all ready to come down, but was retained in its place by a heavy iron chain, which passed around it, and was secured by clamps and staples to the more solid portion of the rock behind it. Rollo and Minnie looked up to this cliff, as they passed beneath it, with something like a feeling of terror.
"I should not like to have that rock come down upon our heads," said Minnie.
"No," said Rollo, "nor I; but I should like to see it come down if we were out of the way."
At length the road, after many winding zigzags and convolutions, came out upon a gravelled area in front of a great iron gate at an angle between two towers.
A man came from a courtyard within, and opened a small gate, which formed a part of the great one. He seemed to be a servant. Mr. George asked him in French if they could come in and see the castle. The man smiled and shook his head, but at the same time opened the door wide, and stood on one side, as if to make way for them to come in.
"He says no," whispered Rollo.
"No," replied Mr. George, "his no means that he does not understand us; but he wishes us to come in."
As Mr. George said these words, he passed through the gate, leading Minnie by the hand, and followed by Rollo.
The man shut the gate after them, and then began to say something to them, very fluently and earnestly, pointing at the same time to a door which opened upon a gallery that extended along the wall of a tower near by. As soon as he had finished what seemed to be some sort of explanation, he left the party standing in the court, and returned to his work.
"He says," remarked Mr. George, "that there is a man coming to show us the castle."
"How do you know?" asked Rollo.
"I know by the signs that he made," replied Mr. George. "Besides, I heard him say schloss-vogt."