CHAPTER VI.

“We are all creatures of habit.”  So my learned uncle, Draen y Coed, who was a Welsh hedgehog, used to say.  “Which was why an ancestor of my own, who acted as turnspit in the kitchen of a farmhouse in Yorkshire, quite abandoned the family custom of walking out in the cool of the evening, and declared that he couldn’t take two steps in comfort except in a circle, and in front of a kitchen-fire at roasting heat.”

Uncle Draen y Coed was right, and I must add that I doubt if, in all his experience, or among the strange traditions of his most eccentric ancestors, he could find an instance of change of habits so unexpected, so complete, I may say so headlong, as when very quiet people, with an almost surly attachment to home, break the bounds of the domestic circle, and take to gadding, gossiping, and excitement.

Perhaps it is because they find that their fellow-creatures are nicer than they have been wont to allow them to be, and that other people’s affairs are quite as interesting as their own.

Perhaps—­but what is the good of trying to explain infatuations?

Why do we all love valerian?  I can only record that, having set up every prickle on our backs against intruders into our wood, we now dreaded nothing more than that our neighbours should forsake us, and wished for nothing better than for fresh arrivals.

In old days, when my excellent partner and I used to take our evening stroll up the field, we were wont to regard it quite as a grievance if a cousin, who lived at the far end of the hedge, came out and caught us and detained us for a gossip.  But now I could hardly settle to my midday nap for thinking of the tinker-mother; and as to Mrs. Hedgehog, she almost annoyed me by her anxiety to see Christian.  However, curiosity is the foible of her sex, and I accompanied her daily to the encampment without a murmur.

The seven urchins we sent down to the burdocks to pick snails.

It was not many days after that on which we heard the old tinker-mother relate Christian’s history, that we were stopped on our way to the corner where we usually concealed ourselves, by hearing strange voices from the winding pathway above us.

“It’s a young man,” said I.

“It’s Christian!” cried Mrs. Hedgehog.

“I feel sure that it is not,” said I; “but if you will keep quiet, I will creep a little forward and see.”

I am always in the right, as I make a point of reminding Mrs. Hedgehog whenever we dispute; and I was right on this occasion.

The lad who spoke was a young gentleman of about seventeen, and no more like a gipsy than I am.  His fair hair was closely cropped, his eyes were quick and bright, his manner was alert and almost anxious, and though he was very slight as well as very young, he carried himself with dignity and some little importance.  A lady, much older than himself, was with him, whom he was helping down the path.