The mysterious tramp

As Danny and the two Cubs stood together on the mossy bank of the moat, the old punt sank.

“She did a good bit of work on her last voyage,” said Nipper, as if he was speaking of a first-class cruiser, or a mine-sweeper at least.

“I wonder she kept up as long as she did,” said Danny, “she’d got a huge hole in her bottom. I got a horrid shock when I saw what you two kids were in.”

“But it wouldn’t have mattered if she had sunk,” said Bob, “you had taught us both to swim. Don’t you remember what a job you had with Nipper—he would play about all the time, and splash everybody, instead of practising? I always did my best all the time, and didn’t give in to myself.”

Nipper hurriedly changed the subject.

“You must be awfully hungry,” he said to Danny, “or did you eat rats? Look, we’ve brought you a lot of grub. Sit down and eat it before we start home—there’s four miles to walk.”

Danny shuddered. “No, I didn’t eat the rats,” he said. He sat down on the bank, and made short work of all the grub the Gladstone bag contained.

“That’s better,” he said at last. He looked an absolute scarecrow, his shirt still inside out, no neckerchief, and smears of dirt all over his very pale and haggard face.

They were only able to go slowly, for Danny ached from head to foot, for the place had been terribly damp, and the rats had prevented him from sleeping a wink.

“Did you give up hope?” said Nipper.

“No,” replied Danny. “A Scout never gives up hope. But it was pretty ghastly. My only comfort was in thinking that I was suffering like Sir Thomas More in the Tower of London, and the martyrs who were shut up in ‘Little Ease’—the rats used to swim into it at high tide, you know.”

They had got to the road by now, and Danny’s heart sank at the thought of a four mile walk; but he said nothing.

However, his good angel had not deserted him yet. They had not walked a hundred yards before a farm cart passed them, piled high with a load of straw. In the country everybody gives anybody a lift, and the friendly carter nodded his assent to Nipper’s request.

Danny and the Cubs clambered up, and were soon curled up in a comfortable nest. Then Danny told them the whole story, and they told him the extraordinary things they had discovered that morning.

The cart dropped the little party at the gates of the Hall, and they walked up the long drive. Arrived near the house, Nipper and Bob began to swell with pride. They, alone, of all the search parties had been successful! They had rescued the hero of the story! Each taking one of Danny’s hands, they led him in triumph on to the terrace, where a little crowd of people were sadly discussing Danny’s fate.

A cheer went up from the four other Cubs, who threw themselves on Danny like so many wild animals. The bailiff and the policeman crowded round. The cook came rushing out of the kitchen, her eyes still red, and laughed and wept, for joy, and kissed Nipper and Bobby (much to their disgust), and promised to make them cream meringues and ices and jam puffs, and “hanythink helse they liked to hask for, bless their little ’earts.”

Danny strove to get out of the excited mob. “I’ll tell you all about it soon,” he said, “but there’s one person I must see before I do anything else—I must see the Tramp—I’ve got something very important to tell him, and no time must be lost.”

“Where’s the Tramp?” everybody asked everybody else. No one knew. So the whole party scattered, to hunt. Miss Prince tried to persuade Danny to stay and rest. “The poor Tramp,” she said, “has had a terrible blow. I’m afraid it’s broken his heart. He strode off, early this morning, and I should say he’s gone off to walk miles and miles, to be alone with his grief.”

But nothing would restrain Danny—he insisted on going just as he was to search. He walked off through the wood, past the very spot where, last year, the Mysterious Tramp had come walking down the mossy path, and into their lives. What strange things had happened since then! After all, St. Antony, “the saint who finds lost things,” and whose statue had seemed to the Tramp to be pointing out that mossy path to him from his niche in the little grey church at the cross roads, had found the little lost girl!

Danny passed the gamekeeper’s cottage, and recalled that sad conversation in the early morning sunlight, when the Tramp had spoken of his quest of revenge, and Danny had told him it was not much use to expect to get his prayers heard, when he kept revenge in his heart.

“He must have forgiven his enemies,” Danny told himself, “and that was why God answered his prayer.” He walked on through the wood, and climbed the fence on to the road.

The church door stood wide open, as usual, and Danny crossed the road to turn in and say thank you for having been rescued from death, and for the finding of Mariette.

The church was very dim and quiet—full of a holy feeling. A golden ray of sunlight fell across the sanctuary. Danny knelt down reverently. At first he thought he was alone. Then he saw a dark figure, bowed down on the step, before the altar; and suddenly a strained, hoarse voice broke through the silence: “O God, this is too much, too much. I lived in the one hope that You were merciful, that You would give her back to me at last: and all the time she was dead, dead, dead. And yet ... if it’s Your Will ... I accept it....”

Danny got softly up and slipped out of the church. It is wrong to listen to any one speaking to another—but most of all to someone speaking alone to God. He sat down on a tree-stump in the churchyard, and waited. Presently a step made him glance up. The Mysterious Tramp stood framed in the archway of the porch, the sunlight falling on his thin, sad face. But there was a strange look of peace and steadfastness in his eyes that Danny had never seen there before.

He walked down the path and would have passed by had not Danny got up. Stepping up to the Tramp he took his arm.

“I say,” he said, “we must thank God for something. I’ve found your little Mariette.”

The Tramp reeled back, and then stood gazing at Danny in silence.

“What do you mean?” he said at last. “Found my little Mariette? But she’s dead—dead!”

“No,” said Danny, “she’s alive, and in a yellow caravan, longing and longing for her daddy. I was just rescuing her, like King Arthur’s knights rescuing a maiden in distress, when Black Bill took me prisoner and very nearly made an end of me.”

As they walked back together through the wood, Danny told the Tramp the whole story of the finding of Mariette. He longed to inquire about the capture of Black Bill, and all the other strange happenings, but he could see that the Tramp could think of nothing but his little girl.