p 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.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. As I'm alive, Tony, I see a man coming towards us.
Ah! I'm sure on't. If he perceives us, we are undone.

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

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Good Heaven defend us! He approaches.

TONY. Do you hide yourself in that thicket,