TONY. Why, that’s it, mon. I have led them astray. By jingo, there’s not a pond or a slough within five miles of the place but they can tell the taste of. HASTINGS. Ha! ha! ha! I understand: you took them in a round, while they supposed themselves going forward, and so you have at last brought them home again. TONY. You shall hear. I first took them down Feather-bed Lane, where we stuck fast in the mud. I then rattled them crack over the stones of Up-and-down Hill. I then introduced them to the gibbet on Heavy-tree Heath; and from that, with a circumbendibus, I fairly lodged them in the horse-pond at the bottom of the garden. HASTINGS. But no accident, I hope? TONY. No, no. Only mother is confoundedly frightened. She thinks herself forty miles off. She’s sick of the journey; and the cattle can scarce crawl. So if your own horses be ready, you may whip off with cousin, and I’ll be bound that no soul here can budge a foot to follow you. HASTINGS. My dear friend, how can I be grateful? TONY. Ay, now it’s dear friend, noble ’squire. Just now, it was all idiot, cub, and run me through the guts. Damn YOUR way of fighting, I say. After we take a knock in this part of the country, we kiss and be friends. But if you had run me through the guts, then I should be dead, and you might go kiss the hangman. HASTINGS. The rebuke is just. But I must hasten to relieve Miss Neville: if you keep the old lady employed, I promise to take care of the young one. [Exit HASTINGS.] TONY. Never fear me. Here she comes. Vanish. She’s got from the pond, and draggled up to the waist like a mermaid. Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE. MRS. HARDCASTLE. Oh, Tony, I’m killed! Shook! Battered to death. I shall never survive it. That last jolt, that laid us against the quickset hedge, has done my business. TONY. Alack, mamma, it was all your own fault. You would be for running away by night, without knowing one inch of the way. MRS. HARDCASTLE. I wish we were at home again. I never met so many accidents in so short a journey. Drenched in the mud, overturned in a ditch, stuck fast in a slough, jolted to a jelly, and at last to lose our way. Whereabouts do you think we are, Tony? TONY. By my guess we should come upon Crackskull Common, about forty miles from home. MRS. HARDCASTLE. O lud! O lud! The most notorious spot in all the country. We only want a robbery to make a complete night on’t. TONY. Don’t be afraid, mamma, don’t be afraid. Two of the five that kept here are hanged, and the other three may not find us. Don’t be afraid.--Is that a man that’s galloping behind us? No; it’s only a tree.--Don’t be afraid. MRS. HARDCASTLE. The fright will certainly kill me. TONY. Do you see anything like a black hat moving behind the thicket? MRS. HARDCASTLE. Oh, death! TONY. No; it’s only a cow. Don’t be afraid, mamma; don’t be afraid.