The mysterious tramp

The mysterious boy of the woods took them into his hut, and showed them how it was built. Then he let them put wood on his fire, and after that he gave them each an apple.

“You pinched those from old Crookedshank’s, I know!” said Bill.

Danny looked surprised. “No,” he said; “I bought them from Mr. Cruikshank.”

“You silly!” said David. “He’s as deaf as a post, and there’s a big hole in his fence just by the apple-tree. Fancy buying apples!”

“Then you would have stolen them from a very poor and deaf old man? What a dirty trick! Besides, stealing is a sin, and no chap with a sense of honour would do it.” He looked very serious, and for the first time in their lives the boys felt really ashamed of themselves and had nothing to say.

But Danny had changed the subject. He showed them how to carve sticks. He told them all sorts of things about birds and squirrels and rats. But first of all he made them each a bow and some arrows, with pheasants’ and pigeons’ feathers, which they found in the woods, to make them go straight.

“I wish we could always stay with you,” said Nipper suddenly, “and live out in the woods, and learn to talk to the birds, and shoot with our bows, and be always happy, with no more rows and jawings and punishments.”

“Yes!” said David and Bill together. “And could you make us Scouts? We’d win lots of badges.”

Danny laughed. “You’re too young to be Scouts,” he said, “but you might be Wolf Cubs. Who are you?”

“We live up at the Hall,” said David. “Mr. Ogden is our grandfather.”

“Oho!” said Danny. “So you’re the little terrors I’ve heard so much about!”

The boys hung their heads.

“My word! you’re not the sort of chaps they have in the Cubs!” he continued. “From all I hear, you seem to be regular little Bolsheviks! Do you know, Cubs have to do a good turn for somebody every day, but you seem to do a bad turn to somebody every day—and more than one, too.”

The boys were silent.

“Squat down,” said Danny, “and I’ll tell you a bit about Cubs. It’s not all play, you know. Chaps who join the Cubs have to behave decently, whether they’re in uniform or not. Once you’ve taken the Cub Promise, you’re a Cub all the time, day and night. The Cubs have two laws they’ve got to keep. One is obedience—they promise to obey the grown-ups. Could you do that?”

“We never have,” said Bill, digging his fingers into the moss, “but we could if we tried.”

“Then the second law says you mustn’t give in to yourself—that means, you mustn’t do all you feel like doing, whether it’s right or wrong. You mustn’t steal Mr. Cruikshank’s apples, and say rude things to people, and tell lies, and fight each other.”

“It would be very hard to keep all that,” said Nipper, “but it would be worth it—to be Cubs.”

“And I think perhaps we should be happier,” said David thoughtfully. “I’m tired of doing frightfulness against Miss Prince.”

Then Danny told them about the Promise—first, loyalty to God. But they had to admit they never thought about God at all, never said morning or night prayers, never went to church, never did anything in order to please God.

Danny looked very serious. “Poor little chaps!” he said suddenly. “But you’ll learn to do better now, and God will forgive you for being so selfish and ungrateful.”

He told them a lot more about Cubs, and their eyes shone with excitement.

“If we come down here after dinner, will you make us into Cubs?” said David.

Danny laughed. “A Cub isn’t made as quickly as all that,” he said. “You will have to show you’re worthy of taking the Cub Promise and can keep the Cub Law. Oughtn’t you to be at lessons this afternoon?”

“Yes,” said the boys.

“Well,” said Danny, “if you go back and tell Miss Prince you’re very sorry you ran away this morning and beg her pardon, and then do your best at lessons this afternoon, you can ask her if you may come down here and have tea with me. Will you do that?”

It seemed to them very hard, but they said they would. And so the three boys went back to dinner with very new thoughts in their minds.

“I think,” said David, as they neared the house, “that we’ve been beasts all our lives, and somehow I didn’t see it till that Scout was talking.”

And so they went and found Miss Prince, and had it all out with her; and she forgave them freely, and they all shook hands and vowed friendship and loyalty for the future. At lessons they tried their very hardest and did quite well. Then they rushed down and had a glorious tea in the woods by Danny’s camp-fire.

“I’ll come home with you,” said Danny, when the evening began to close in.

“Hooray!” shouted the boys.

“Because you see,” said Danny, “I’m living at the Hall, too. Mr. Ogden has engaged me to be your companion and groom.” The boys went nearly mad with delight.

And as they walked home together, while the sun set in a glory of red and gold, and purple shadows crept out of the woods, they talked of how the boys would become Cubs—real, true, and faithful Cubs; and how they would get a few more and make a little Pack, and ask Miss Prince to be the Cubmaster.

That evening, when it had got dark and they were all squatting round the fire on the floor, Nipper suddenly said, “Are you Danny the Detective?”

“Yes,” laughed Danny. Then the Cubs fell on him, and smacked him on the back, and nearly tore him to pieces.

“Tell us your adventures,” said David. And so Danny began to tell them of his Cub days and the German spies.

And Miss Prince, looking at the happy group, said, in her heart, “Thank God!”