CHAPTER IXTHE COMING OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAMP
He came down the little path, through the bracken, walking rather unsteadily, like a man who is weak from illness or hunger. The evening sun, slanting through the trees, fell on his shabby figure. He halted as he saw the Cubs, and stood irresolute, as though wondering whether he should go back or proceed. The Cubs, turning from their fire, gazed in surprise at the intruder. But at first they did not notice his ragged appearance, for something in his face, his eyes, held them. His face was very thin, but it was a beautiful face. He had very clear, grey eyes—mysterious eyes that seemed to be looking away into the invisible—looking for something they never found. There was something very sad about his face, but there was also something about it that made the boys feel that he was a friend.
All this was the first impression that the man gave them as their eyes met. The next moment they were looking him over critically. With this look they noticed that his clothes were torn and ragged, his boots nearly worn out, but that he was very clean and carefully shaved, and had verywhite hands with long fingers. “Hands like an artist,” said Danny to himself. The man turned about as if to go back along the path, but Danny jumped up and stepped towards him. This mysterious stranger could not be allowed to go away like this. There was something about him that appealed strongly to Danny’s imagination.
“I say, sir,” he said (the sir came out involuntarily), “won’t you come and have some tea by our fire?”
The man turned, surprised, and then meeting Danny’s eager eyes, smiled.
“Well,” he said, “it’s very good of you to ask me—I’m afraid I’m trespassing.”
“No, you aren’t,” said Danny, “come on. Fill up that mug, David, and pass the grub along. Won’t you sit on this log, sir?”
The man sat down close to the fire. He took the mug Danny handed to him and a large slice of bread and butter. This he ate in silence—he was evidently very hungry. The boys watched him. No one spoke. At last Nipper broke the silence.
“Who are you?” he said.
“A tramp,” replied the man.
Once again silence fell. Then Nipper broke it again.
“You aren’t a very ordinary kind of tramp,” he said. “I think we will call you themysterious tramp. You will stay with us, won’t you, and tell us things? We were just wanting an adventure.”
The man smiled. His smile came slowly, asif it was rusty from long disuse. And David decided that he was so queer and silent because he had probably lived for many years upon a desert island and forgotten how to talk.
“Am Ian adventure?” said the man. “And what things do you want me to tell you? Stories, I suppose. I used to tell stories once, but I’ve forgotten them all. There was a little kid I—I knew. She was always pestering me for stories. But that was long ago.”
“Oh, do try and remember them,” said the Cubs, crowding round him. The tea and bread and butter and birthday cake seemed to have cheered up the mysterious tramp no end, and he seemed to be remembering how to talk. Before long he was even laughing.
By dint of much questioning the Cubs managed to discover quite a lot about him. That he had once been an artist, for one thing, and could still draw fascinating little pictures with bits of burnt wood on smooth, flat stones. He seemed to like drawing little girls better than boys, which was a pity. They also discovered that once he had lived in a little house on the edge of a wood, and could make the calls of cuckoos and wood-pigeons by blowing through his clasped hands. Also he knew all sorts of things about the habits of fox cubs and squirrels and hedgehogs.
The sun sank down behind the distant woods. The autumn evening closed in, blue and misty. The harvest moon crept up, orange-coloured and enormous above the trees. But still the Cubs and the mysterious tramp sat in the red glow of thefire. Nipper was on the tramp’s knees, and Hugh and David sat pressed up against his legs. Bill, the practical one, kept stoking the fire so as to prevent the party coming to an end.
Suddenly David gripped the tramp’s leg. “Look—a ghost!” he whispered; but Danny laughed. “It’s Miss Prince coming to look for you,” he said.
Miss Prince, a white scarf thrown over her dark hair, stepped out of the shadow of the trees into the circle of light.
“Youarehaving a late birthday party, kiddies,” she said. Then she saw the stranger by the light of the fire, and stared at him in surprised silence.
“This,” said Nipper, putting his arms round the man’s neck, “is our mysterious tramp, and that,” he said, with a nod of his head, “is Miss Prince. She’s very nice, really.”
The mysterious tramp got up and stepped back into the blue darkness beyond the bright glow of the fire.
“It’s time you kids were in bed,” he said, “and that I was back on the roads.”
“Yes,” said Miss Prince, “come along.”
The Cubs were about to raise a cry of protest, when Danny whispered “Cub Law.” This was the secret sign between them when they forgot.
“All right, Miss Prince,” said Bill. “But let us just say good night to our tramp.” They pressed round him. “You will come back to-morrow, won’t you?” they pleaded.
“No, no,” said the man. “I must go back to the roads. But it’s been awfully jolly, to-night.Thank you for being pals. I shan’t forget you, kiddies.”
Very reluctantly the Cubs went away with Miss Prince, but Danny did not go with them. Stepping out of the circle of light into the shadow, he walked down the path, where in the yellow moonlight he could see a dark figure ahead. The mysterious tramp was not going to escape so easily.