Page:The Pennyles Pilgrimage.djvu/21

 Thw worst was, we did neither sup nor sleep, And so a temperate diet we did keep. The morning all enrobed in drifting fogs, We being as ready as we had been dogs: We need not stand upon long ready making, But gaping, stretching, and our ears well shaking: And for I found my host and hostess kind, I like a true man left my sheets behind. That Thursday morn, my weary course I framed, Unto a town that is Newcastle named. (Not that Newcastle standing upon Tyne) But this town situation doth confine Near Cheshire, in the famous county Stafford, And for their love, I owe them not a straw for't; But now my versing muse craves some repose, And whilst she sleeps I'll spout a little prose. In this town of Newcastle, I overtook an hostler, and I asked him what the next town was called, that was in my way toward Lancaster, he holding the end of a riding rod in his mouth, as if it had been a flute, piped me this answer, and said, Talk-on-the-Hill; I asked him again what he said Talk-on-the-Hill: I demanded the third time, and the third time he answered me as he did before, Talk-on-the-Hill. I began to grow choleric, and asked him why he could not talk, or tell me my way as well there as on the hill; at last I was resolved, that the next town was four miles off me, and that the Rh