“Under your honourable favour,” said Wayland, “I am an honest man, and I have sold my goods at an honest price. As to this most precious medicine, when I told its qualities, I asked you not to purchase it, so why should I lie to you? I say not it will cure a rooted affection of the mind, which only God and time can do; but I say that this restorative relieves the black vapours which are engendered in the body of that melancholy which broodeth on the mind. I have relieved many with it, both in court and city, and of late one Master Edmund Tressilian, a worshipful gentleman in Cornwall, who, on some slight received, it was told me, where he had set his affections, was brought into that state of melancholy which made his friends alarmed for his life.”
He paused, and the lady remained silent for some time, and then asked, with a voice which she strove in vain to render firm and indifferent in its tone, “Is the gentleman you have mentioned perfectly recovered?”
“Passably, madam,” answered Wayland; “he hath at least no bodily complaint.”
“I will take some of the medicine, Janet,” said the Countess. “I too have sometimes that dark melancholy which overclouds the brain.”
“You shall not do so, madam,” said Janet; “who shall answer that this fellow vends what is wholesome?”
“I will myself warrant my good faith,” said Wayland; and taking a part of the medicine, he swallowed it before them. The Countess now bought what remained, a step to which Janet, by further objections, only determined her the more obstinately. She even took the first dose upon the instant, and professed to feel her heart lightened and her spirits augmented—a consequence which, in all probability, existed only in her own imagination. The lady then piled the purchases she had made together, flung her purse to Janet, and desired her to compute the amount, and to pay the pedlar; while she herself, as if tired of the amusement she at first found in conversing with him, wished him good evening, and walked carelessly into the house, thus depriving Wayland of every opportunity to speak with her in private. He hastened, however, to attempt an explanation with Janet.
“Maiden,” he said, “thou hast the face of one who should love her mistress. She hath much need of faithful service.”
“And well deserves it at my hands,” replied Janet; “but what of that?”
“Maiden, I am not altogether what I seem,” said the pedlar, lowering his voice.
“The less like to be an honest man,” said Janet.