[Poetic license—no hill!]
And so at last with anxious feet
They gain their much-desired retreat.
“Now we come to the account of the ‘Truly Awful Encounter with the Greedy Grocer.’
“If it isn’t all quite true, you must remember that we poets must often sacrifice veracity to the demands of poetic diction.”
This was agreed to, and Nan read on:
“Ere the cooks had time for napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
Rapping at the kitchen door.