“Well?” said I impatiently.

“Well,” nodded the Pedler, and his eyes twinkled malevolently.  “I says it again—­I warns you again.  You’re a nice, civil-spoke young cove, and quiet (though I don’t like the cock o’ your eye), and, mind, I don’t bear you no ill-will—­though you did turn me from your door on a cold, dark night—­”

“It was neither a cold nor a dark night!” said I.

“Well, it might ha’ been, mightn’t it?—­very well then!  Still, I don’t,” said the Pedler, spitting dejectedly into the ditch, “I don’t bear you no ‘ard feelin’s for it, no’ow—­me always makin’ it a pint to forgive them as woefully oppresses me, likewise them as despitefully uses me—­it might ha’ been cold, and dark, wi’ ice and snow, and I might ha’ froze to death—­but we won’t say no more about it.”

“You’ve said pretty well, I think,” said I; “supposing you tell me what you have to tell me—­otherwise—­good night!”

“Very well then!” said the Pedler, “let’s talk o’ summ’at else; still livin’ in the ’Oller, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, well!  I come through there today,” said he, grinning, and again his eyes grew malevolent.

“Indeed?”

“Ah!—­indeed!  I come through this ’ere very arternoon, and uncommon pretty everythin’ was lookin’, wi’ the grass so green, and the trees so—­so—­”

“Shady.”

“Shady’s the word!” nodded the Pedler, glancing up at me through his narrowed eyelids, and chuckling.  “A paradise you might call it—­ah! a paradise or a—­garden of Eden, wi’ Eve and the serpent and all!” and he broke out into a cackling laugh.  And, in the look and the laugh, indeed about his whole figure, there was something so repellent, so evil, that I was minded to kick and trample him down into the ditch, yet the leering triumph in his eyes held me.

“Yes?” said I.

“Ye see, bein’ by, I ’appened to pass the cottage—­and very pretty that looked too, and nice and neat inside!”

“Yes?” said I.

“And, bein’ so near, I ’appened to glance in at the winder, and there, sure enough, I see—­’er—­as you might say, Eve in the gardin.  And a fine figure of a Eve she be, and ‘andsome wi’ it —­’t ain’t often as you see a maid the likes o’ ’er, so proud and ’aughty like.”

“Well?”

“Well, just as I ’appened to look in at the winder, she ’appened to be standin’ wi’ an open book in ’er ’and—­a old, leather book wi’ a broken cover.”

“Yes?” said I.

“And she was a-laughin’—­and a pretty, soft, Eve’s laugh it were, too.”

“Yes?” said I.

“And—­’e were a-lookin’ at the book-over ’er shoulder!” The irons slipped from my grasp, and fell with a harsh clang.

“Ketches ye, does it?” said the Pedler.  I did not speak, but, meeting my eye, he scrambled hastily to his feet, and, catching up his pack, retreated some little way down the road.