Master Harry Hartsed, like many another, found his principles impeded by his 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 a girl,” 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 Coplestone and Adela to know about it; but if you are so cruel, I—I think I must ask Walter. He would—”
Perhaps the fact that Nella was a girl did alter the question. Harry yielded, as he usually did, to her strong will and ready tongue, and said—
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“To wait outside the postern to-morrow at the full of the moon. I can get out, but I can’t get across the moat; so I want you to have your little boat ready, dear Harry. Then, I am not afraid of the forest; but I 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 was both wrong and dangerous; but, alas for his good nature! he hated saying no, and more than one scrape that lay heavy on a tender conscience and truthful 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 had hardly yet strayed beyond his boyish round of duties and amusements, could not withstand either her coaxing or her contempt. He admired her more, though he hardly knew if he liked her so well as kind little Adela; but Nella was queen of Northberry Manor, and turned all the young people there round her finger.
Besides, he could not make her give up her plan save by betraying her secret, and he could not let her carry it out alone. In the depths of that untrodden forest, strange things were sometimes seen, and much stranger were imagined. Many a frightened woodman or swineherd had seen a werewolf dash aside into the impenetrable undergrowth, or in a sudden clearance had beheld a gnome or a demon grinning at him from between the trees, had heard the rush of the wild huntsman over his head in the autumn storms, and fled in terror from the haunted spot. No doubt it needed little to suggest these and the like phantoms; but it takes a long time for any race of animals to become extinct, and chance specimens of the wolf and the wild boar may have lingered in forest glades long after they were supposed to be exterminated. And wild men of the woods may have had a real existence in a state of society when maniacs were regarded with superstitious horror, and when these vast forests afforded a refuge for criminals and outlaws of every description.