What devil possessed you, Sir, to drown us this way ?' Puddock sighed.

They were passing at this moment the quiet banks of the pleasant meadow of Belmont, and the lights twinkled from the bow-window in the drawing-room.

I don't know whether Puddock saw them--Cluffe certainly did not.
'Hallo! hallo!--a rope!' cried Cluffe, who had hit upon this desperate expedient for raising the neighbourhood.

'A rope--a rope! hallo! hallo!--a ro-o-o-ope!' And Aunt Becky, who heard the wild whooping, mistook it for drunken fellows at their diversions, and delivered her sentiments in the drawing-room accordingly..