“I don’t mind trying,” he said, condescendingly; “you make the poetry and I’ll say it.”
Elfrida buried her head in her hands and thought till her forehead felt as large as a mangel-wurzel, and her blood throbbed in it like a church clock ticking.
“Got it yet?” he asked, just as she thought she really had got it.
“Don’t!” said the poet, in agony.
Then there was silence, except for the pigeons and the skylarks, and the mooing of a cow at a distant red-roofed farm.
“Will this do?” she said at last, lifting her head from her hands and her elbows from the grass; there were deep dents and lines on her elbows made by the grass-stalks she had leaned on so long.
“Spit it out,” said Edred.
Thus encouraged, Elfrida said, very slowly and carefully, “‘Oh, Mouldiwarp’—I think it would rather be called that than mole, don’t you?—‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out and show us how to set about it’—that means the treasure. I hope it’ll understand.”
“That’s not poetry,” said Edred.
“Yes, it is, if you say it right on—