out of the hall-door among them, calling them to her, andstroking and petting them with fearless affection.
"Oh, how much nicer this is than embroidery!" she cried, clapping herhands.
"And oh, how shocked Dame Agnes would be to hear you say so?" said atall, slim lad, with a ruddy brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and an airof alert and cheerful activity.
"Ah, but, Harry, I have improved so much. See, this is my new greenholiday kirtle, and I worked the border to it, I did indeed. SisterKatharine showed me the stitch."
"It is a very fine kirtle, truly," said the boy. "See, you have letLion lay his paws all over the front of it."
"It will brush, it is made of serge," said Nella, blushing. "But now,Harry, I have something very serious to speak of. Where will you comeand talk to me about it?"
"Let us come on to the tower battlements then," said Harry, struck withthe air of serious purpose that suddenly changed the girl's laughingface.
Harry Hartsed also had relations in Portugal, and his father, a poorsquire, lived not many miles from the manor. Sir Walter Northberry,after the fashion of the time, had taken him into his household that hemight acquire the education of a gentleman, and he was now aboutseventeen, a fine, high-spirited boy, earnest and ambitious. He andNella took their way on to the top of one of the little towers, fromwhich they could see over miles of forest, in every variety of springcolouring.
Nella leaned against the battlement, the wind freshening her rosy cheeksand blowing her long hair about her shoulders. She fixed her eyes onHarry, and said--
"Now I am going to tell you a secret. I want you to help me, but I willnever forgive you if you speak to any one else about it."
"I always keep your secrets, Nella; you need not scold me beforehand,"said Harry.
"Well," said Nella, too much in earnest to reply to his challenge, "itis about my--my sister."
Her eyes fell, and she coloured deeply, with the awe of one approachinga mystery.
"Your sister! But you know nothing about her, Nella," said Harry,tenderly and rather shyly.
"No; but I mean to find out. I began to think of her on Whitsun Eve,when I was making a garland for Our Lady. I want to know what hasbecome of Catalina. I am sure she is alive."
"But it is quite impossible that you can find out about her, Nell," saidHarry. "Either she is dead--God rest her soul!--or lost to you forever."
"I am going to ask the witch in the forest," said Nella, coolly.
Harry started, and said in a tone of strong disapproval--
"I shall not help you to do that."
"Then I shall go by myself."
Harry was a straightforward youth, who disliked what he could notunderstand. There was something disgraceful as well as dreadful in aMoorish captivity. If the lost girl was a Mahometan slave, the lessthey knew of her the better; and as for the witch in the forest, inplain English he was very much afraid of her.
"I will not hear of such a thing, Nella," he said. "It is very wickedto consult a witch who has sold her soul to the Evil One. Besides, howdo you know what she might do to you! Now, do you think Father Anselm,or the Lady Abbess, or your aunt, or Sir Walter would consent to it?"
"No," said Nella, "of course not. But I am sure that it is right to go.And I shall tell my beads all the way and wear my cross round my neck.She cannot harm my soul or my body while I have that. I will let hercut my hair off and give her my string of pearls if she wants them. Andif you are afraid, I will go by myself."
"Afraid! I am not afraid of the forest! But you ought not to deceiveDame Agnes and go in secret."
"Very well," said Nella. "And ought you to have got out at the littlepostern, and gone to Dunford Fair, when Sir Walter forbade you? Or awaydown on the rocks to get the sea-gull's eggs, when he sent you to theMaster Armourer at Newton? If you may play truant for pleasure, surelyI may for a good purpose."
Master Harry Hartsed, like many another, found his principles impeded byhis practice, and, dropping the question of obedience, observed--
"You are a girl, which alters the question."
"Ask Father Anselm if a boy has any more right to be disobedient than agirl," retorted Nella.
"I shall not let you run into danger," said Harry, firmly.
"Then," said the girl, bursting into tears, "I shall be very unhappy,and I thought you loved me better. I'll never forgive you--never. And,oh dear, dear Harry, _do_ help me--_do_! I don't want Walter Coplestoneand Adela to know about it; but if you are so cruel, I--I think I mustask Walter. He would--"
Perhaps the fact that Nella was a girl _did_ alter the question. Harryyielded, as he usually did, to her strong will and ready tongue, andsaid--
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
"To wait outside the postern to-morrow at the full of the moon. I canget out, but I can't get across the moat; so I want you to have yourlittle boat ready, dear Harry. Then, I am not afraid of the forest; butI don't know the way to the blasted oak, and you do. So you must come,and wait there while I go and see the witch. You will, dear Harry!"
Harry was perfectly aware that Nella was going to do a thing that wasboth wrong and dangerous; but, alas for his good nature! he hated sayingno, and more than one scrape that lay heavy on a tender conscience andtruthful spirit had been caused by this weakness. Young as Nella was,she was so much of a woman for her years that he, whose thoughts hadhardly yet strayed beyond his boyish round of duties and amusements,could not withstand either her coaxing or her contempt. He admired hermore, though he hardly knew if he liked her so well as kind littleAdela; but Nella was queen of Northberry Manor, and turned all the youngpeople there round her finger.
Besides, he could not make her give up her plan save by betraying hersecret, and he could not let her carry it out alone. In the depths ofthat untrodden forest, strange things were sometimes seen, and muchstranger were imagined. Many a frightened woodman or swineherd had seena werewolf dash aside into the impenetrable undergrowth, or in a suddenclearance had beheld a gnome or a demon grinning at him from between thetrees, had heard the rush of the wild huntsman over his head in theautumn storms, and fled in terror from the haunted spot. No doubt itneeded little to suggest these and the like phantoms; but it takes along time for any race of animals to become extinct, and chancespecimens of the wolf and the wild boar may have lingered in forestglades long after they were supposed to be exterminated. And wild menof the woods may have had a real existence in a state of society whenmaniacs were regarded with superstitious horror, and when these vastforests afforded a refuge for criminals and outlaws of everydescription.
To the boy and girl who by the light of the May moon penetrated theforest glades, they seemed to be peopled with fearful forms and morefearful possibilities. Moonlight and towering tree-trunks, thickundergrowths of hazel and elder, made strange combinations; and as atthe sound of their footsteps great owls and woodpeckers started fromtheir roosting-places and screeched and whirred round their heads, haresand foxes rushed through the grass and brambles, and the wind stirredand echoed through the tree-tops, they shuddered, and Nella felt thatshe had hardly counted the cost of the undertaking. The path wastolerably plain to them; it was a horse track, and led through theforest down to the shore, and they pursued it for about a mile, inalmost entire silence, and then turned aside to the right into anarrower one, which shortly led them, to what was always called theblasted oak. This was a great withered tree, which stood alone in thecentre of a clearing, without a leaf or a twig to break the forlornaspect of its wide-stretching arms now glimmering white in themoonlight.
"Now," said Nella, "we must sound a hunting horn, and some one will showus the way to the witch."
Harry took hold of the horn that was slung round his neck; to sound itrequired a considerable effort; but he was ashamed to hesitate inNella's presence, and putting it to his lips, blew a blast much fainterthan that with which he was accustomed to summon the dogs on a huntingmorning. It seemed to them as if the whole forest
rang with the sound,as if it echoed away through glade and thicket till it must rouseNorthberry Manor itself, nay, as if it might call the whole country toarms.
Nella shrank up to Harry and they both stood trembling and terrified.No one answered their summons.
"The witch will not come, Nella," said Harry in, it must be confessed, atone of relief.
"Then we must blow again," said Nella; but, as she spoke, they sawrunning in the grass in front of them a little white rabbit. Instead ofstarting from them it ran up to Nella's feet, and then away from her fora short distance, then back again. "Is that the witch?" she whispered."Must I follow that? I will cross myself first." As the rabbitretained its form and showed no alarm at the holy sign,
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