midday
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 .