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.