CHAPTER XIITHE SECOND QUEST
The dew lay thick and white on the grass; hips and haws made bright splashes of colour in the early morning sunlight; the robins sang, the larks soared, the woodpeckers tapped—but Danny noticed none of them. With his hands behind him and his head bent, he walked across the field, deep in thought.
Last night, with the pale moon and the red glow of the fire, and the tramp’s sad story, all seemed like a strange dream. And what he had said, himself, seemed like a dream too, for he had promised the tramp that he would undertake to find his lost daughter.
Somehow he felt so sure that he was meant to do so. He had asked the tramp to stay in the deserted cottage for the night, and promised to have a pow-wow the next day as to how they should commence the search.
But in the morning light things did not seem so possible and easy. After all, it was seven years ago that the girl had vanished. She had been stolen, too, by malicious people; and the scene of the plot against the artist was many miles away.
The police and the court had been fooled by the gang of forgers, and had refused to make any inquiries about the artist’s little girl. It would be a hopeless quest for a Scout to start asking questions about an ex-convict’s past. What on earth could Danny say to the tramp?
He had reached Prior’s Wood, and still no idea had occurred to him. All he could think of was that they should get their poor friend to stay there awhile, and recover his strength and his spirits. It might be possible, then, to get him work or perhaps he would feel able to begin painting again, and get a job in that line.
When Danny reached the cottage the tramp was sitting outside it in the sun. His hair was all wet from his wash in the stream. He looked, somehow, quite happy, and he seemed so absorbed in his own day-dreams that he did not notice Danny as he came up, until he said “Good morning!”
“Hullo, Danny!” he replied. “I’ve slept better on your bracken bed than I’ve done for many years. And I’ve dreamed—oh, such lovely dreams! All about my little Mariette. I feel quite happy again. It’s made me long to paint again, and I’ve been finding no end of pictures in this wood, ever since sunrise!”
Danny laughed, but he felt more like crying inside. There was so little chance of finding the girl, and yet the tramp was beginning to count on it as if it was already done.
But somehow Danny felt that he was meant to find the girl, and his spirits rose. For nearlyan hour he and the artist-tramp discussed pictures. Then Danny made a fire, and boiled a billy of tea, and produced a loaf and some butter out of his haversack.
“About twelve o’clock,” he said, “you’ll have six wild Wolf Cubs descending upon you. They yelled with joy when I told them their ‘mysterious tramp’ was still here! Now I must get back and take them to church.”
So he said good-bye to the tramp and went back to the house, whistling.
Out of the little grey church at the cross-roads came the Cubs, very demurely. But no sooner were they outside the churchyard gate than they gave vent to a wild yell, and, tumbling over the stile, tore off down the path to the gamekeeper’s cottage.
When Danny arrived with the big basket of lunch, he found them very happy. The tramp had apparently turned into a most dangerous grizzly bear, and the Cubs into intrepid hunters.
All the afternoon their mysterious friend told them stories. When at last it was time for them to go Danny saw them home, and then came back to the cottage. He stoked up the fire and sat down by it.
“Sir,” he said, “when you told me your story last night, you said you were tramping the roads because you have two quests. One was to find your little girl. You did not tell me the other.”
The tramp’s face clouded. His kind grey eyes suddenly became as hard as steel. He did notanswer for some time. Then he spoke slowly.
“My second quest is this,” he said; “to find the fellow who wronged me, andreap my revenge!”
Danny was taken aback. This was so different from the kind, jolly artist of this morning. Suddenly he realized a little the bitterness of soul produced by those seven years’ unjust confinement, and by the cruel loss of his child.
He saw the whole story in a new light and understood it better. More than ever did he long to help this man, and yet those words, spoken so deliberately, filled him with horror. Revenge is a grievous sin. How could this man pray every day to find his daughter, and expect God to hear his prayers, while, in his heart of hearts, there was revenge?
“Well,” said the tramp, staring at Danny, “what’s the matter?”
“Oh,sir,” cried Danny, “then we shall never find Mariette!”
“What do you mean?” said the tramp.
“I mean,” said Danny, “that the only possible chance of finding her is for God to answer your prayers. And He won’t do that till you forgive your enemies.”
The tramp scowled darkly.
“You’re only a boy,” he said; “you don’t understand. There are some things a man can’t forgive.”
There was nothing more to be said. Danny’s heart was heavy as he went to bed that night.
The next morning Danny was very busy. He had been given the job of clipping the three ponies,and he was not able to go down to the wood. He was just about to set out, at one o’clock, when Miss Prince called him into her sitting-room.
“I want to speak to you, Danny,” she said. “I was down in the village just now, taking the boys to their carpentry class, and as I came back, alone, I met a man at the cross-roads. He came up to me and said, ‘Would you, please, give a message to Danny for me? Tell him that the Squire came through the wood, and, finding me in the old gamekeeper’s cottage, was furiously angry. He spoke—well, very roughly, and said that if I did not clear out at once he would hand me over to the police. So I’m clearing out.’ He looked awfully sad,” added Miss Prince, “and just as I was turning away he said, ‘Say good-bye to the kiddies for me. They performed agood turn, right enough, when they let me be friends with them.’
“He looked too sad for anything, and so thin and ragged. I gave him a shilling. At first he went very red, and then he took it, and said, ‘Thank you very much. I shall keep it as a souvenir of those who were kind to me.’ He looked at me as if he wanted to say something else, but he turned away without saying it, and walked down the road. It was the man the Cubs gave tea to on their birthday. What did he mean about the cottage?”
So Danny told Miss Prince how he had made the tramp a bed there. And then, in strict confidence, he told her the whole of the tramp’s sad story, because he felt so unhappy about it himselfand felt he must talk of it to someone. The tears came into Miss Prince’s eyes.
“Cheer up, Danny,” she said. “I somehow feel we shall see him again, and that he will forgive his enemies, and that you will find the little girl.”