‘Hill and dale?’ tried Sponge again.

‘Welkin!’ exclaimed Jack, hitting it off himself—­’"makin’ the welkin ring with their melody!” makin’ the welkin ring with their melody,’ repeated he, with exultation.

‘Capital!’ observed Sponge, as he wrote it.

’Equal to Littlelegs,’[2] said Jack, squinting his eyes inside out.

‘We’ll make a grand thing of it,’ observed Sponge.

‘So we will,’ replied Jack, adding, ’if we had but a book of po’try we’d weave in some lines here.  You haven’t a book o’ no sort with you that we could prig a little po’try from?’ asked he.

‘No,’ replied Sponge thoughtfully.  ’I’m afraid not; indeed, I’m sure not.  I’ve got nothin’ but Mogg’s Cab Fares.’

‘Ah, that won’t do,’ observed Jack, with a shake of the head.  ‘But stay,’ said he, ‘there are some books over yonder,’ pointing to the top of an Indian cabinet, and squinting in a totally different direction.  ’Let’s see what they are,’ added he, rising, and stumping away to where they stood. I Promessi Sposi, read he off the back of one.  ’What can that mean!  Ah, it’s Latin,’ said he, opening the volume. Contes a ma Fille, read he off the back of another.  ‘That sounds like racin’,’ observed he, opening the volume, ‘it’s Latin too,’ said he, returning it.  ’However, never mind, we’ll “sugar Puff’s milk,” as Mr. Bragg would say, without po’try.’  So saying, Mr. Spraggon stumped back to his easy-chair.  ‘Well, now,’ said he, seating himself comfortably in it, ’let’s see where did we go first?  “He broke at the lower end of the cover, and, crossing the brook, made straight for Fleecyhaugh Water Meadows, over which,” you may say, “there’s always a ravishing scent."’ ‘Have you got that?’ asked Jack, after what he thought a sufficient lapse of time for writing it.

‘"Ravishing scent,"’ repeated Sponge as he wrote the words.

‘Very good,’ said Jack, smoking and considering. ‘"From there,"’ continued he, ’"he made a bit of a bend, as if inclining for the plantations at Winstead, but, changing his mind, he faced the rising ground, and crossing over nearly the highest part of Shillington Hill, made direct for the little village of Berrington Roothings below."’

‘Stop!’ exclaimed Sponge, ’I haven’t got half that; I’ve only got to “the plantations at Winstead."’ Sponge made play with his pen, and presently held it up in token of being done.

‘Well,’ pondered Jack, ‘there was a check there.  Say,’ continued he, addressing himself to Sponge, ‘"Here the hounds came to a check."’

‘Here the hounds came to a check,’ wrote Sponge.  ’Shall we say anything about distance?’ asked he.

‘P’raps we may as well,’ replied Jack.  ’We shall have to stretch it though a bit.’

‘Let’s see,’ continued he; ’from the cover to Berrington Roothings over by Shillington Hill and Fleecyhaugh Water Meadows will be—­say, two miles and a half or three miles at the most—­call it four, well, four miles—­say four miles in twelve minutes, twenty miles an hour,—­too quick—­four miles in fifteen minutes, sixteen miles an hour; no—­I think p’raps it’ll be safer to lump the distance at the end, and put in a place or two that nobody knows the name of, for the convenience of those who were not out.’