“No,” said Danny, “I haven’t forgotten it.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled, to pretend he didn’t mind at all about missing the Christmas party, where all his fellow Cubs would be enjoying themselves. “I’ll be sorry to miss Uncle Jim,” he said. “Tell him so, mother, won’t you? And keep me a bit of plum pudding. But I must go and cheer up poor Uncle Bill.”
And so half an hour later he started off to tramp the long five miles, a kit-bag full of good things slung over his shoulder. The snowflakes fell soft and white, and the feeling of Christmas was in the air. And Danny was very happy—far happier than he had expected to be this Christmas.
. . . . . . . .
As he tramped along the snowy roads he was thinking of the strange story of Uncle Bill, and the bad luck that had seemed to follow him.
Bill’s father had been a man who owned a good deal of property, and a very clever man too, able to earn much money. But from boyhood he had been a miser. His one thought had been to earn gold and then store it away in secret, and count it up and gloat over it; but never spend more than he possibly could help, and never, never give any away. And so he brought up his children in rags, and often they had to go hungry and barefoot. He sold his property, to get more gold, and lived in a miserable little house by a wood. At last his three boys, tired of this wretched life, ran away from home and went to sea. Two of them were drowned, and Bill found himself the only remaining member of his family, with the exception of his sister, Danny’s mother, who had married and left home.
When Bill was twenty-one he received a message saying that his father was dead, and that all the gold he had amassed during his life would now belong to his son. So, feeling he was a very rich man, he married a nice girl from the little Irish seaport where he was staying, and returned home as quickly as possible. But when he reached his native village he learnt the bad news that the miser had died without leaving any will, and had hidden his gold so well that no one could find it. All that poor Bill inherited was a little old cottage and a woodcutter’s ax.
There was nothing for it but to make the best of a bad job, and settle down in the little house and become a woodcutter. And so Bill and his young wife did their best to make a comfortable home of the old place; but it was a hard life, and it was difficult always to be contented when they knew that somewhere thousands of golden sovereigns lay hidden that should have belonged to them. One son was born to them, and now he was nineteen, and had been fighting in France for the last year.
. . . . . . . .
It had been a long tramp, but at last Danny found himself in the wood on the borders of which was Uncle Bill’s cottage. There was plenty of lovely holly covered with berries in this wood; and up in an oak tree Danny saw some mistletoe. So, putting down his bundle and taking out his knife, he climbed the tree and cut down a great bunch of it, and then filled his arms with holly. He looked like the very spirit of Christmas as he stood in the doorway of Uncle Bill’s house, the snow thick on him, his red muffler making a bright patch of colour, his arms full of holly and mistletoe, and a great bulging kit-bag, slung across his back.
The little room of the cottage looked dull and dismal. Only a tiny fire burned feebly in the great open fireplace. Bill and his wife, looking pale and ill, sat one each side, in silence. But Danny’s appearance seemed to work a miracle. He had brought the spirit of youth to the house. Before long they were all laughing. He and Uncle Bill were putting up holly above the pictures, and hanging the mistletoe in the chimney-corner. And Bridget was unpacking the kit-bag. Before long Danny had been out and chopped some logs, so that a fire was roaring and crackling up the chimney, and sending sparks flying like fire-fairies.