Escaped across back of yard with nothing much (3,3,4)
I believe the answer is:
far and away
'much' is the definition.
(far and away means to a great extent)
'escaped across back of yard with nothing' is the wordplay.
'escaped' becomes 'ran away' (run away can mean to escape).
'across' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'back of yard' becomes 'd' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'nothing' becomes 'fa' (slang term - sweet Fanny Adams).
'ranaway' going around 'd' is 'randaway'.
'randaway' after 'fa' is 'FAR AND AWAY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for far and away that I've seen before include "Distant parts" , "Very much so" , "By some distance" , "By a great deal" , "Easily" .)