“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless this bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed, Four angels at my head, One to watch, one to pray, And two to bear all fears away.” And they blest it, for she slept profoundly. She dreamed she was playing with a white kid, on the lawn at Blenheim. And it was daylight when she woke. CHAPTER IX _There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety.... Now at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are.... No, Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn._ --SAMUEL JOHNSON. The children were so glad to be free from the arduous service of Granny Petulengro, that all through the early hours of the morning they were hardly aware of the anxiety that filled the hunchback’s heart. He feared lest the gipsies should appear before the carrier. Mousie could not restrain her eagerness to run hither and thither, but he would not let the children out upon the road. Once inside the carrier’s hooded van he thought they would be safe, and though they were, properly speaking, no concern of his, his friendship was such for Jasper that he wished with all his heart to serve him. And a very good heart it was that beat within his shrunken body; a heart that would serve well to remind one, of the jewel hidden in the uncouthness of the toad. At last there sounded a distant rumbling of wheels, and soon the hunchback was out upon the threshold. The children were bundled into the waggon in the sacks Jasper had brought with him, but they were not tied up as before. The sacks were to be secured round them only if any of the gipsy gang appeared. And so they started off once again upon their travels. But home was getting nearer and nearer. After a wonderfully slow drive with old Thorn the carrier, who glowered out upon all wayfarers from the shadow of the hood, they reached the town of Ely; and here they were taken to Master Larkynge, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf. Thorn had been well paid by Jasper for his share in it, and asked no questions as to who the children were, yet both children were glad to see the last of him; he had none of the hunchback’s gentleness, or the kindness of Jasper Ford.