With these words he attempted to lead the child away with him, but she snatched her hand from him and clung to the tree beneath which she had been sitting. "No, no," she breathlessly entreated, "dear sir, let me go--do not take me back again--please, please, not there!"
"Obstinate little thing, you must come," laughed Johannes. "Do you suppose I can go back without you, after having been sent to find you like a stray lamb? My mother would shut me up for three days upon bread and water if I did not bring you back; you would not like that, would you?"
"Ah, you are laughing at me. I will not go back with you, I will not," sobbed Ernestine.
"Will not? What is the use of such words from a weak little girl who can be easily carried in arms?" With these words Johannes good-humouredly lifted Ernestine from the ground and placed her on his shoulder to take her back to the castle. But she succeeded in grasping an overhanging branch of the oak-tree just above her, and, before Johannes could prevent it, she had swung herself up by it, and was clambering like a squirrel from bough to bough.
"This is delightful!" cried Johannes, much amused; "you are really, then, a dryad in disguise? Such a prize must not escape; to be sure, I never dreamed to-day, when I passed my examination, that the new Herr Doctor's first feat would be to climb a tree after a wayward little girl; but the episode is much more poetic than marching up and down stairs, making my best bow to my old examiners." Daring this soliloquy be had taken off his coat and climbed into the tree.
But when he tried to seize Ernestine, she retreated to the extremity of the bough upon, which she was sitting, and was quite out of his reach; he could not follow her, for the slender branch creaked and drooped so, even beneath the child's light weight, that he momentarily expected it to break. The jest had become earnest indeed: if the little girl fell, she would fall a double distance,--the height of the tree and of the hill which the tree crowned. Quick as thought the young man swung himself down to the ground, and took his station where he might, if possible, receive Ernestine in his arms if she fell. For the first time he now saw how high she was perched, and a cloud before the moon just at the moment prevented his perceiving the exact direction that she must take in falling. His anxiety was intense. The responsibility of a human life was suddenly thrust upon him. If he did not succeed in catching the falling child, she would shortly lie before him, if not a corpse, at least with broken limbs. The steep hill, too, made it almost impossible for him to maintain a firm footing; wherever he planted his feet, they slipped continually. The blood rushed to his face; his heart beat audibly; with outstretched arms he gazed up at the child, who sat above him, all unconscious of her danger.
"Little one," he cried breathlessly, "the branch where you are sitting will not bear you! scramble back again, or you will fall!"
"I will not come down until you promise me not to carry me back! I shall not fall," she panted, and snatched at a stronger bough above her, but it sprang back from her grasp, leaving only a few twigs in her hand.
"I will promise anything that you want," cried Johannes in deadly terror, "only go back quickly to the trunk--quickly--quickly!"
The bough cracked, just as the child swung herself towards the trunk, and it fell to the ground,--leaving her clinging to the stump where it grew from the trunk; and when Johannes climbed up to her and she could at last reach his shoulder, she was trembling so with fright that she willingly clasped her thin arms around his neck. With difficulty he reached the ground again with his burden, his hands scratched and bleeding and his shirt-sleeve torn. He put down Ernestine, and, stepping back a pace or two, regarded her gravely; then, after wiping the moisture from his brow, he began in a serious tone of voice, "Do you know what I would do if I were your father?"