SCENE II.--_The back of the garden. Enter_ TONY, _booted and spurred,

meeting_ HASTINGS.

TONY: Ecod, five-and-twenty miles in two hours and a half is no such bad driving.

HASTINGS: But where are your fellow-passengers? Where have you left the ladies?

TONY: Why, where I found 'em! Led 'em astray, man. There's not a pond or a slough within five miles of the place but they can tell the taste of; and finished with the horsepond at the back of the garden. Mother's confoundedly frightened, and thinks herself forty miles off. So now, if your own horses be ready, you can whip off with my cousin, and no one to budge an inch after you.

HASTINGS: My dear friend, how can I be grateful.

[_Exit_.

TONY: Here she comes--got up from the pond.

[_Enter_ MRS. HARDCASTLE.

MRS. HARDCASTLE: Oh, Tony, I'm killed--shook--battered to death! That last jolt has done for me. Whereabouts are we?

TONY: Crackskull Common by my guess, forty miles from home. Don't be afraid. Is that a man galloping behind us? Don't be afraid.

MRS. HARDCASTLE: Oh, there's a man coming! We are undone!

TONY (_aside_): Father-in-law, by all that's unlucky! Hide yourself, and keep close; if I cough it will mean danger.

[_Enter_ HARDCASTLE.

HARDCASTLE: I am sure I heard voices. What, Tony? Are you back already? (TONY _laughs_.)

MRS. HARDCASTLE (_running forward_): Oh, lud; he'll murder my poor boy! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage on me. Take my money, take my life, good Mr. Highwayman, but spare my child.

HARDCASTLE: Sure, Dorothy, you have lost your wits? This is one of your tricks, you graceless rogue. Don't you remember me, and the mulberry-tree, and the horsepond?

MRS. HARDCASTLE: I shall remember it as long as I live. And this is your doing--you----

TONY: Ecod, mother, all the parish says you've spoilt me, so you may take the fruits on't. [_Exeunt_.

Miss Neville thinks better of the elopement, and resolves to appeal to Mr. Hardcastle's influence with his wife. This improved plan is carried to a successful issue, with great satisfaction to Tony Lumpkin.