“I lived,” said the tramp, “in a little house on the edge of a wood just outside a village. I had a little daughter. She was more like a fairy than a child. Her mother died when she was a wee girl. I was an artist. I used to paint pictures of the woods and lanes and trees—the woods by moonlight, the woods at sunrise, the woods all green and blue in spring; the woods looking like dark, solemn churches on winter afternoons, with the red and gold and purple sunset showing through the fine black traceries of the trees like the stained-glass windows of a Gothic cathedral, and blue mist hanging about like incense. And somehow there were always fairies peeping out somewhere in my pictures—Mariette expected them. And after all, what are artists for if not to see what ordinary people miss and put what they see into their pictures? We had no friends, Mariette and I—we didn’t want any. We had each other and the fairies.

“Sometimes I used to spend the night out in the woods, getting pictures into my head to paint by day, or so as to catch the very first glimmer of golden clouds for a picture of the sunrise fairies. I used to leave Mariette at the cottage of my old nurse, whom she loved very much. It was on one of these sunrise days that my bad dreams began.

“Mariette was just seven. I had left her with the old nurse, and had started out to spend a night in the woods about five miles away. I took a few things with me so as to camp in the bracken, and be fresh and ready to paint at dawn. As I walked through the village, I chanced to meet a man that Mariette and I always called ‘the wicked uncle.’ He was the only person in the place that we did not like. He lived in a square, grey house, with dirty windows, and most of the blinds drawn down. He had a mean, cruel face, and little eyes like a rat. We were quite sure no fairies lived in his garden—it was a sad, dull garden, with no flowers.

“As I passed him that evening at dusk, he said, ‘Good evening. Going on a painting expedition?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But surely,’ said the wicked uncle, ‘you can’t paint by moonlight?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I am going to sleep out in the woods, and paint at sunrise.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and what happens to your little girl?’ ‘She stays with Mrs. Binks,’ I answered. I was getting tired of his questions. ‘Going far?’ he called after me. I had grown impatient. ‘Yes, miles and miles,’ I shouted. I felt angry to think of his having pried into our private affairs. Somehow I did not sleep well on my bracken bed. I kept seeing the face of ‘the wicked uncle,’ and his little peering eyes in the dusk.

“After sunrise I painted for a few hours, and then started home. It was nine when I reached Mrs. Binks’ cottage, where I had gone to call for Mariette to come back and help me cook my breakfast. But she was not there, nor was Mrs. Binks.

“I went on to our cottage, but they were not there either. So I made myself some tea and fried an egg, and just as I was sitting down to begin, I heard the sound of feet on the cobbled path outside. It was a strange, tramping sound, and I expected to hear a rap on my knocker. But to my surprise the door was opened from outside, and for a moment I saw the cunning face of the ‘wicked uncle.’

“Then a police inspector and three constables marched in. I was too much surprised to speak. It was the inspector who broke the silence. ‘I arrest you,’ he said, ‘on a charge of forgery.’ Click, click, and handcuffs were on my wrists.

“Of course, I said I knew nothing about forgery, and was pretty rude, too, I’m afraid, as I was angry. But the inspector laughed drily, and said he had a very clear case against me. I was not quite such a clever fellow as I thought. In a moment there would be some very pretty evidence, so I had better leave off arguing. ‘Lead the way, Mr. Crale,’ he added, turning to the ‘wicked uncle,’ who thereupon produced a bunch of skeleton keys and led the way through my kitchen, followed by the inspector and two constables.

“I told the two bobbies who were left to guard me exactly what I thought of Mr. Crale; but they grinned at my remarks, and one of them said: ‘’E’s done a good turn to us police, anyway. A long time we’ve been searching for the ringleader of your gang, and we shouldn’t never have found you if it ’adn’t ’a’ been for Mr. Crale. A clever gentleman he is.’

“Just then the party came back. I had heard them stumping down my cellar stairs. They carried three great chests which Mr. Crale unlocked with his skeleton keys. One contained an enormous number of bank notes. Another a curious set of instruments I could not understand. A third was full of letters and papers. ‘A very pretty little press you’ve got down there,’ said the inspector. ‘We’ll come back for that, later.’

“Well, to make a long story short, I was taken away in a motor car. I begged to be allowed to see Mariette, but Mr. Crale told the inspector I had sent Mariette away the day before to stay with some friend in London, and was only trying to find a way to escape by asking to see her now. I was tried, and the case against me was extraordinarily clever. There were papers and letters and documents all pointing to my guilt; and when I pleaded not guilty, and accused Crale of being the forger himself, and of using me to cover his own guilt, they only smiled, as much as to say what a fool I was to go on denying what was so obvious.

“When I said I must see Mariette and Mrs. Binks they told me it was no use talking like that, as they had my letter in their possession making over my daughter to one of my accomplices, who had unfortunately managed to escape, and had my daughter with him. And so I was cast into prison, and all that I had—not much—was taken to pay my supposed debts.

“There were no fairies in prison, nor Mariette. But the worst—the worst thing of all was that I did not know what had become of her. I nearly went mad. Before long I became very ill. Nearly a year I spent in the prison infirmary. Then I served six long years in the cells. Three months ago I was set free.”

The tramp’s clear, sad voice ceased. Danny was breathing hard. Bitter rage filled his soul. He dared not speak, for he felt the words he would utter would not be Scout-like. Then he remembered that the man had said he wanted sympathy. He did not know what to say—no words could possibly express the sympathy he felt. He gripped the tramp’s cold hand. “No one can know how ghastly it must be for you, sir,” he said huskily; “no one, except God.”

Silence fell between them. The fire had burned very low. At last Danny spoke. “Why are you a tramp?” he said.

“Because,” said the man slowly, “I have a quest—two quests. The first is to find my little Mariette. Day and night in prison I dreamed of finding her. When I came out I just started walking and walking, looking for her. I have no money to travel in any other way. I know no trade. All I could do was to paint, and I can’t paint now. You must have a happy heart to paint pictures of woods and fairies. And so I tramp and tramp, and pray every day that God will guide me to where my little Mariette is waiting for her daddy to find her in this long game of hide-and-seek.

“Do you know, whenever I come to a cross-road I kneel down and pray with all my heart to God to make me take the right road that will lead me to her at last. Then I turn round three times with my eyes shut and take the road I face. When I came down that little path towards your fire it was because when I opened my eyes I was not facing any road but the stile into the wood. I took the path, somehow feeling that something was going to happen.”

“Perhaps God sent you this way because He means us to find Mariette for you. Did you notice the little grey church near the cross-roads?”

“Yes, yes,” said the tramp, “that was why I felt I must take the path. I saw the statue of St. Antony over the door—St. Antony, the saint who finds lost things.”

“Yes,” said Danny, “I thought of that, too.”

The tramp stood up. Then suddenly he laughed an almost happy laugh. “‘Danny the Detective,’ the Cubs called you,” he said. “Well, Danny, it’s done me good to talk to you. And I believe between you and St. Antony I shall get my little fairy back again. God is very good.”

So Danny led the mysterious tramp through the wood to a deserted cottage that a gamekeeper had once lived in. He gathered some dry bracken and with this and his own camp blankets made him a bed. A good supper of steak pie and potatoes and roly-poly pudding had been kept hot for Danny by the kind old cook. That night the tramp enjoyed the best meal he had had for seven years; but he did not know that Danny went to bed on a supper of biscuits left over from tea.