The Mysterious Tramp

The Mysterious Tramp by Vera C. Barclay

In a country house, orphaned twins Bill and David, aged ten, and their younger brother Nipper wear out one nurse after another with theft, cruelty to animals, lying, and open defiance of their grandfather, Mr. Ogden. When their nurse is finally dismissed, Mr. Ogden hires a strict governess, Miss Prince, whom the boys vow to torment into leaving within a week. Their pranks fail to break her cheerful patience, so she persuades Mr. Ogden to let her bring in Danny, a Scout Patrol-Leader she has known since childhood, ostensibly to serve as groom and companion. Danny wins the boys' fascination in Prior's Wood by demonstrating scoutcraft and befriending wild creatures, shames them over their casual theft from a poor deaf neighbor, and explains the Wolf Cub Promise and Law. The three boys reform enough to apologize to Miss Prince and are eventually enrolled as Cubs alongside three village boys, with the gamekeeper's son Hugh made Sixer. While camping with the growing Pack, the Cubs meet a ragged, cultured stranger who calls himself simply a tramp. Fed and welcomed, he tells Danny his history: an artist named Graham, he was framed for forgery years earlier by a neighbor called Crale, imprisoned for seven years, and separated from his small daughter Mariette, who vanished during his arrest. Released, he now tramps the roads searching for her, praying at crossroads for guidance, but confesses to Danny a second purpose — revenge on the man who ruined him. Danny warns him that revenge will block his prayers. The tramp is driven off by the Squire (Mr. Ogden) when found sheltering in an estate cottage, but returns months later during haymaking season, drawn back by chance to work for a neighboring farmer. A traveling circus arrives, and Danny discovers that its brutal owner, Black Bill, keeps a girl performer disguised as an Indian dancer who is secretly a captive white girl pleading to be rescued. Attempting a night rescue, Danny is caught, disguised, bound, and imprisoned in a flooded cellar. The Cubs organize a search; pairs investigate different leads while authorities are misled by Black Bill's lies. Bill and Jack recover Danny's hat as evidence; David and Hugh, spying on Black Bill at night, overhear him and an accomplice named Bingey plotting blackmail against "Crale," revealed to be Mr. Ogden under an assumed name — the true forger who once framed the tramp. The boys fetch the tramp, and together they trail Ogden to a moonlit meeting at the crossroads. When Black Bill attacks Ogden after the blackmail confrontation turns violent, the tramp overcomes his desire for revenge, remembering Danny's words, and saves Ogden's life, being wounded in the process. Ogden recognizes him as Graham and, overwhelmed with remorse, resolves to confess his crime and surrender everything — his house, wealth, and guardianship of his grandsons — to Graham, then submit to arrest. Black Bill and Bingey are captured. The next morning, younger Cubs Nipper and Bobby Brown independently continue searching for Danny and, guided by his agreed rescue call, find and free him from the flooded dungeon of a deserted grange using a chain and stones to break the window bars. Black Bill, questioned by police, confesses to kidnapping Danny and to having taken Mariette from Crale years before, claiming she died in his care. Graham is devastated, but Danny and the Cubs then rescue the disguised dancer from the circus camp — she proves to be Mariette herself, alive and held by Black Bill's household, and father and daughter are joyfully reunited. Ogden departs to surrender to the police and stand trial, transferring his estate and the guardianship of his grandsons to Graham. The children welcome Graham as their new father, Mariette as their sister, and Danny as their brother, and at Nipper's urging Graham proposes to Miss Prince, who accepts, completing the family.

By Vera C. Barclay · First published 1920 · Genre: Children's Literature, Adventure, Coming of Age · 27 chapters · 33,048 words

First lines

The night nursery was in darkness, save for the red glow of the fire, and the occasional flickering light of a little yellow flame that seemed to wake up every now and then and light up the room, casting strange black shadows on the ceiling. In three little white beds lay three boys. At least they should have been lying, but, as a matter of fact, two were sitting up, with expressions of sullen rage upon their tear-stained faces, and one was lying in a huddled heap beneath the bedclothes, sobbing.

"For goodness' sake stop that beastly sniveling, you little cry-baby," said David.

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The Mysterious Tramp is listed on Textopian as a novella by Vera C. Barclay, dated 1920 CE.

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orphaned children · moral reformation · Scout movement · Wolf Cubs · children's adventure · mystery · redemption · revenge · forgiveness · loyalty · faith · English village

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More by Vera C. Barclay