Children
Where are you going?—­Take us too!—­us too!—­
Oh, take us with you?—­Take us!

Piper
[distracted]
  No, no, no! 
You shall be kittens all.  And chase your tails,
Till I come back!—­So here!

[Catches Hansel and affixes to his little jacket a long strip of leather for a tail; then whirls him about.

Children
  Me too!—­Me too!

Cheat-the-devil
Let me make tails,—­let me!
[Seizing shears and leather.]

Piper
[wildly]
  Faith, and you shall. 
A master tailor!—­Come, here’s food for thought. 
Think all,—­
[To the Strollers]
  And hold your tongues, there!—­
  If a Cat—­
If a Cat have—­as all men say—­Nine Lives,
And if Nine Tailors go to make a Man,
How long, then, shall it take one Man turned Tailor
To keep a Cat in Tails, until she die?
[Cheat-the-devil looks subdued; the children whirl about. 
But here’s no game for Jan.—­Stay!  Something else.—­
[He runs to a wooden coffer, rear, and takes out a long crystal on the
end of a string, with a glance at the shaft of sunlight from the roof. 
The Children watch.

Be quiet, now.—­Chase not your tails too far,
Till I come home again.

Children
Come home—­come home!

Piper
And you shall see my—­

Children
  Something Beautiful! 
Oh, oh, what is it?—­Oh, and will it play? 
Will it play music?

Piper
Yes.
[He hangs the crystal in the sun.  A Rainbow strikes the wall. 
  —­The best of all!

Cheat-the-devil, Jan, children
Oh, oh, how beautiful,—­how beautiful!

Piper
And hear it pipe and call, and dance, and sing. 
Heja!—­And hark you all.  You have to mind—­
The Rainbow!

[He climbs out, pipe in hand.  The Children whirl about after their tails.—­Cheat-the-devil, and Jan on his tree-stump, open-mouthed with happiness, watch the Rainbow.

Curtain

Scene II:  The Cross-ways:  on the Long Road to Rudersheim.

A wooded country:  high hills at back.  The place is wild and overgrown, like the haunted spot it is reputed to be.  In the foreground, right, a ruined stone well appears, in a mass of weeds and vines.  Opposite, left, tall trees and dense thickets.  Where the roads cross (to left of centre), stands a large, neglected shrine, with a weather-worn figure of Christ,—­again the ’Lonely Man’—­facing towards Hamelin.—­The stage is empty, at rise of the curtain; but the sound of chanting from burghers just gone by fades slowly, on the road to Rudersheim.

From the hillside at the rear comes the piper, wrapped in a long green cloak, his pipe in his hand.  He looks after the procession, and back to Hamelin.—­Enter, springing from the bushes to the right, Michael, who seizes him.