"Maiden, I am not altogether what I seem," said the pedlar, lowering his
voice.
"The less like to be an honest man," said Janet.
"The more so," answered Wayland, "since I am no pedlar."
"Get thee gone then instantly, or I will call for assistance," said
Janet; "my father must ere this be returned."
"Do not be so rash," said Wayland; "you will do what you may repent of.
I am one of your mistress's friends; and she had need of more, not that
thou shouldst ruin those she hath."
"How shall I know that?" said Janet.
"Look me in the face," said Wayland Smith, "and see if thou dost not
read honesty in my looks."
And in truth, though by no means handsome, there was in his physiognomy
the sharp, keen expression of inventive genius and prompt intellect,
which, joined to quick and brilliant eyes, a well-formed mouth, and an
intelligent smile, often gives grace and interest to features which are
both homely and irregular. Janet looked at him with the sly simplicity
of her sect, and replied, "Notwithstanding thy boasted honesty, friend,
and although I am not accustomed to read and pass judgment on such
volumes as thou hast submitted to my perusal, I think I see in thy
countenance something of the pedlar-something of the picaroon."
"On a small scale, perhaps," said Wayland Smith, laughing. "But this
evening, or to-morrow, will an old man come hither with thy father, who
has the stealthy step of the cat, the shrewd and vindictive eye of
the rat, the fawning wile of the spaniel, the determined snatch of the
mastiff--of him beware, for your own sake and that of your distress.
See you, fair Janet, he brings the venom of the aspic under the assumed
innocence of the dove. What precise mischief he meditates towards you I
cannot guess, but death and disease have ever dogged his footsteps. Say
nought of this to thy mistress; my art suggests to me that in her state
the fear of evil may be as dangerous as its operation. But see that
she take my specific, for" (he lowered his voice, and spoke low but
impressively in her ear) "it is an antidote against poison.--Hark, they
enter the garden!"
In effect, a sound of noisy mirth and loud talking approached the garden
door, alarmed by which Wayland Smith sprung into the midst of a thicket
of overgrown shrubs, while Janet withdrew to the garden-house that
she might not incur observation, and that she might at the same time
conceal, at least for the present, the purchases made from the supposed
pedlar, which lay scattered on the floor of the summer-house.