Tony. Five-and-twenty miles in two hours and a half is no such bad driving. The poor beasts have smoked for it. Rabbet me, but I'd rather ride forty miles after a fox, than ten with such varment.
Hast. Well, but where have you left the ladies? I die with impatience.
Tony. Left them? Why where should I leave them but where I found them.
Hast. This is a riddle.
Tony. Riddle me this, then. What's that goes round the house, and round the house and never touches the house?
Hast. I'm still astray.
Tony. Why that's it, mon. I have led them astray. By jingo, there's not a pond or slough within five miles of the place, but they can tell the taste of.
Hast. 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.
Hast. But no accident, I hope.