"Some bank-'oliday couple, I reckon; friends of his, maybe. But about that swan--Mortimer must 'a-been talkin' through his hat. Why to get to the Thames that bird'd have to go up the Stratford-on-Avon to Kingswood cut, down the Warwick an' Birmingham to Budbrooke--with a trifle o' twenty-one locks at Hatton to be worked or walked round; cross by the Warwick an' Napton--another twenty-two locks; an' all the way down the Oxford Canal, which from Napton is fifty miles good." "She'd be an old bird before she got there, at our pace," Tilda agreed. "But, o' course, Mr. Bossom, if we want to get to Stratford quick, an' you don't, you'll make the pace what you like an' never mind us." "Who said I didn' want to get to Stratford?" he asked almost fiercely, and broke off with a groan. "Oh, it's 'ard!--it's 'ard! . . . And me sittin' here calcilatin' eggs an' milk domestic-like and thinkin' what bliss . . . But you don't understand. O' course you don't. Why should you?" Tilda placed her hands behind her back, eyed him for half-a-minute, and sagely nodded. "Well, I never!" she said. "Oh, my goodness gracious mercy me!" "I can't think what you 're referrin' to," stammered Mr. Bossom. "So we're in love, are we?" He cast a guilty look around. "There's Mortimer, comin' down the path, an' only two fields away." "And it's a long story, is it? Well, I'll let you off this time," said Tilda. "But listen to this, an' don't you fergit it. If along o' your dawdlin' they lay hands on Arthur Miles here, I'll never fergive you-- no, never."