ΤΟΝΥ.

Aye, I'm your friend, and the best friend you have in the world, if you knew but all. This riding by night, by the bye, is curfedly tirefome. It has shook me worse than the basket of a stagecoach.

HASTINGS.

But how where did you leave your fellow travellers? Are they in fafety? Are they houfed ?

TONY.

Five and twenty miles in two hours and a half is no fuch bad driving. The poor beasts have smoaked for it: rabbet me, but I'd rather ride forty miles after a fox, than ten with fuch varment.

HASTINGS.

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?

HASTINGS.

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?

I'm ftill aftray.

HASTINGS.

TONY,

TONY.

Why that's it, mon. I have led them aftray. By jingo, there's not a pond or flough 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 fo you have at laft brought them home again.

TONY.

You fhall hear. I first took them down Featherbed-lane, where we ftuck faft in the mud. I then rattled them crack over the ftones 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 fick of the journey, and the cattle can fcarce crawl. So if your own horfes be ready, you may whip off with coufin, and I'll be bound that no foul here can budge a foot to follow you.

HASTINGS.

My dear friend, how can I be grateful?

TONY.

TONY.

Aye, now its dear friend, noble 'fquire. Juft now, it was all idiot, cub, and run me through the guts. Damn your way of fighting, I fay. After we take a knock in this part of the country, we kifs and be friends. But if you had run me through the guts, then I fhould be dead, and you might go kiss the hangman.

HASTINGS.

The rebuke is juft. But I must haften to relieve Mifs Neville; if you keep the old lady employed, I promise to take care of the young one.

Never fear me.

[Exit Haftings.

TONY.

Here he 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 fhall never survive it. That last jolt that laid us against the quickset hedge has done my bufinefs.

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.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

I wish we were at home again. I never met fo many accidents in so short a journey. Drench'd in the mud, overturned in a ditch, ftuck faft in a flough, 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 Don't be afraid.

tree.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

The fright will certainly kill me.

TONY.

Do you fee any thing like a black hat moving behind the thicket?

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

As I'm alive, Tony, I fee a man coming towards us. Ah! I'm fure on't. If he perceives us we are undone.

TONY.

(Afide) Father-in-law, by all that's unlucky, come to take one of his night walks. (To her) Ah, it's a highwayman, with piftols as long as my arm. A damn'd ill-looking fellow.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

Good Heaven defend us! He approaches.

TONY.

Do you hide yourself in that thicket, and leave me to manage him.

If there be any danger I'll When I cough be fure to keep Hardcastle hides behind a tree in the back Scene.

Enter HARDCASTLE.

HARDCASTLE.

I'm mistaken, or I heard voices of people in want of help. Oh, Tony, is that you? I did not expect you fo foon back. Are your mother and her charge in fafety?

TONY.

Very fafe, Sir, at my aunt Pedigree's. Hem.

Mrs. HARDCASTLE.

(From behind) Ah death! I find there's danger.

HARD