“Then I think I had better go home,” said Nella, hardly knowing whether she were impressed or disappointed, but a good deal less frightened than when she came in.
“Give me the pearls, and keep the secret of your visit, else will the talisman work for ill. But now go home, Mistress Nella, go home with Master Harry, and don’t you be coming into the forest at night; ’tisn’t fitting for young ladies like you, and will anger his honour, Sir Walter, sure enough.”
The different tone in which these last words were spoken startled Nella, for the witch dropped all her mysterious solemnity, and spoke, with half-coaxing command, in a voice that sounded strangely familiar.
Perhaps she was afraid of losing the doles of bread that Dame Agnes Northberry dispensed in the courtyard of the Manor, and which old Bess, as she was called, came to claim without any one guessing at her identity with the witch of the forest, who was visited in darkness and mystery. The young lady of Northberry was a client with whom she was afraid to deal.
On the whole, Harry, standing without in the darkness, listening to the strange cries of bird and beast, and watching the awful shadows change and sway in the rising wind, had the hardest time of it. He had followed Nella almost to the door of the hut, and was unspeakably thankful when she ran out alive and unhurt and ready to hurry home as fast as possible.
She hardly spoke, till they were safe out of the forest shades and in the familiar home fields, and then Harry said, in a subdued tone, “Was it very terrible, Nell?”
“No—no,” said Nella, with hesitation. “She said Catalina was across the sea, and had a talisman—the cross, you know—and that if I saw her it would be across the sea. But I was not much frightened,—and I don’t think there was anything—wicked. There were no—demons.” Nella sunk her voice a little, and spoke in a tone of slight disappointment mingled with relief.
“Well,” said Harry, breaking the spell with a laugh, “for all she told you, you might as well have stayed at home, Nell.”
“No, not when I had said I would go.”
But they both thought it rather remarkable that the next morning Harry Hartsed received a letter from his relations at Lisbon, duly favoured by a ship bearing despatches to the court, inviting him to come to Portugal and try his fortunes “across the sea.”