nce 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.

Janet, however, had no occasion for anxiety. Her father, his old
attendant, Lord Leicester's domestic, and the astrologer, entered
the garden in tumult and in extreme perplexity, endeavouring to quiet
Lambourne, whose brain had now become completely fired with liquor, and
who was one of those unfortunate persons who, being once stirred with
the vinous stimulus, do not fall asleep like other drunkards, but
remain partially influenced by it for many hours, until at length, by
successive draughts, they are elevated into a state of uncontrollable
frenzy. Like many men in this state also, Lambourne neither lost the
power of motion, speech, or expression; but, on the contrary, spoke with
unwonted emphasis and readiness, and told all that at another time he
would have been most desirous to keep secret.

"What!" ejaculated Michael, at the full extent of his voice, "am I to
have no welcome, no carouse, when I have brought fortune to your old,
ruinous dog-house in the shape of a devil's ally, that can change
slate-shivers into Spanish dollars?--Here, you, Tony Fire-the-Fagot,
Papist, Puritan, hypocrite, miser, profl