Warning: I do not own the characters from Gundam Wing nor the fairy tale 'The Traveling Companion.' It is taken from Anderson's version.
CHAPTER ONE
Poor Quatre was very sad, his father was ill and he knew that he could not recover. There was no one else in the little room besides these two; it was quite late at night and the lamp had nearly burnt out.
"You have been a good son, Quatre," said the dying man. "I am sure the Lord will help you on in the world!" and he fixed his mild, gentle eyes upon his son, drew a long breath and passed away so quietly he seemed only to be asleep. Quatre wept bitterly, for now he had nobody in the world belonging to him, neither father nor mother, sister or brother. Poor Quatre! He knelt by the bedside and kissed his dead father's hands and shed many tears; but at last his eyes closed, and he fell asleep with his head against the hard bed-post.
He had a wonderful dream; he saw the sun and moon bowing before him, and he saw his father quite well and strong again; he laughed as he always used to laugh when he was very pleased. A lovely girl with a golden crown on her long, beautiful hair, stretched out her hand to Quatre, and his father said, "See what a beautiful bride you have won. She is the loveliest maiden in the world." Then he awakened, and all the beautiful things were gone; his father lay on the bed dead and cold and there was no one else there, poor Quatre!
The dead man was buried in the following week; Quatre walked close behind the coffin, and he could no longer see his good father who had loved him so much. He heard the earth fall upon the coffin lid, and watched it till only a corner was left, and then the last shovelful fell upon it, and it was entirely hidden. He was so miserable, he felt as if his heart would break.
A beautiful psalm was being sung which brought the tears into his eyes, he wept, and this brought him relief. The sun was shining brightly on the green trees, and seemed to say, "do not be so sad, Quatre! See how blue the sky is; your good father is up there, and he will pray to God that all may be well with you."
"I will always be good!" said Quatre, "and then I shall go to heaven some time to my father, and what joy it will be to see each other again. How much I shall have to tell him; and he will have so much to show me, and to teach me about the bliss of Heaven, just as he used to teach me here on earth. Oh, what joy it will be!"
Quatre saw it all so vividly that he smiled at the thought, although the tears still ran down his cheeks. The little birds in the chestnut tree twittered with joy although they had been at the funeral, but they knew that the dead man was in Heaven, and that he now had wings larger and more beautiful than their own. They knew, too, that he was happy, because he had been a good man here on earth, and they were glad of it. Quatre was them fly away from the trees out into the world, and he felt a strong desire to fly away with them, But first he mad a wooden cross to put up on his father's grave; when he brought it along in the evening he found the grace covered with sand and decorated with flowers. This had been done by strangers for love of his father.
Early next morning Quatre packed his little bundle and stowed away his sole inheritance in his belt; it only consisted of fifty dollars and a few silver coins, and with these he started out into the world. But first he went to the churchyard to his father's grace, where he knelt and said the Lord's Prayer, and then added, "Farewell, dear father! I will always be good, and then you won't be afraid to pray to the food God that all may go well with me!"
The fields that Quatre passed through were full of bright flowers nodding their heads in the warm sunshine as much as to say "Welcome into the fields! Is it not lovely here?" but Quatre turned round once more to look at the old church where he had been baptized and where he had gone every Sunday and sung the psalms with his good old father. On looking back he was standing in one of the loop-holes of the tower the little church, Nisse with his pointed red cap, shading his eyes from the sun with his arm. Quatre nodded good-bye to him and the little Nisse waved his hand and kissed his fingers to him to show that he was sending his good wishes for a pleasant journey.
Quatre now began to think how many beautiful things he would see in the great beautiful world before him, and he went on and on till he found himself much further away than he had ever been before. He did not know the towns through which he passed, or the people he met, he was Quatre among strangers. The first night he had to sleep under a haystack in a field, for he had no other bed. But he thought it was lovely, no king could have had a better. The field by the river, the haystack, and the deep blue sky above made a charming room. The green grass dotted with red and white flowers was the carpet, the elders and the rose bushed were growing bouquets, and he had the whole river for a bath, with its clear fresh water, and the rushes which nodded their heads bidding him both "Good-night" and "Good-morning." The moon was a great night light high up under the blue ceiling, one which would never set fire to the curtains. Quatre could sleep quite quietly without fear, and this he also did. He only awoke when the sun was high up in the sky and all the little birds were singing "Good-morning! Good-morning! Are you not up yet?"
The bells were ringing for church; People were on their way to hear the parson pray and preach, and Quatre went with them. He sang a psalm and listened to the word of God, and as he felt as if he were in his own old church, where he had been christened, and where he had sung psalms with his father. There were a great many graves in the churchyard, and some of them were overgrown with long grass. Quatre thought of his father's grave, which someday might look like these when he was no longer there to weed and trim it. So he knelt down, pulled up the long grass, and raised the wooden crosses which had fallen down. He picked up the wreaths which had been blown away and replaced them; thinking that perhaps someone would do the same for his father's grave now he was away.
An old beggar was standing outside the churchyard leaning on a crutch, and Quatre gave him the few silver coins he had left, and then went happily and cheerfully on into the wide world. Towards evening a fearful storm cane on and Quatre hurried to get under shelter, but it soon grew dark. At last he reached a little church standing on a solitary hill; the door was ajar, and he slipped into take shelter till the storm was over.
"I will sit down here in a corner till the storm is over," he said; "I am quite tired and in need of a rest!" so he sat down, folded his hand, and said his evening prayer; and before he was aware he was asleep and dreaming, while it thundered and lightened outside.
When he woke up it was the middle of the night and the storm was over: the moon was shining in upon him through the windows. In the middle of the aisle stood an open coffin with a dead man in it who was not yet buried. Quatre was not at all afraid, for he had a good conscience, and he knew that the dead can do no harm; it is the living wicked people who do harm to others. There were two such bad men standing by the coffin. They had come to do harm to this poor dead man; to turn him out of his coffin and throw the body outside the church door.
"Why do you want to do this?" asked Quatre. "It is very wicked and disgraceful; let the man rest for Heaven's sake!"
"Oh nonsense!" replied the wretches; "he cheated us, he owed us money which he could not pay, and now he has gone and died into the bargain, and we shall never see a penny, so we want to revenge ourselves. He shall lie like a dog outside the church doors!"
"I have not got more than fifty dollars," said Quatre; "it is my whole inheritance, but I will gladly give it to you if you will honestly promise me to leave the poor dead man in peace. I shall manage very well without the money, I have good, strong limbs, and the Lord will always help me."
"Well," said the bad men, "if you are ready to pay his debt like that, we won't do him any harm, we can assure you!"
And they took the money Quatre gave them, laughing at him for being such a simpleton, and they went away. Quatre put the body straight again, folded the hands, said good-bye, and went away through the woods in a state of great satisfaction. Around him, where the moon pierced through the trees, he saw numbers of little elves playing about merrily. They did not disturb themselves on his account, they knew very well that he was a good innocent person, and it is only bad people who never see the fairies. Some of them were no bigger than one's finger, and they had long yellow hair fastened up with golden combs. They swung hand in hand upon the big dewdrops which covered the leaves and the long grass. Sometimes the dewdrops rolled down, and then they fell with it down among the grass, and this caused great noise and laughter among the little folks. It was very amusing. They sang all the pretty little songs Quatre used to know when he was a little boy. Great spiders with silver crowns upon their heads spun their webs from branch to branch like bridges connecting palaces. They glittered in the moonlight like glass where the dew had fallen on them. They went on with their sports till the sun rose, and the little creatures crept away into the flower buds, and the wind caught the bridges and palaces and swept them away into the air like cobwebs.
Quatre had just got through the wood, when a strong man's voice called out behind him, "Hallo, comrade! Where are you going?"
"Out into the wide world," said Quatre. "I have neither father nor mother, I am only a poor lad, but the Lord will protect me."
"I am going out into the wide world too!" said the stranger with hair that covered one eye; "shall we go together?"
They soon grew much attached to each other, for they were both good men, but Quatre soon saw that the stranger was much wiser than himself, he had been round the greater part of the world, and he was well able to describe all that he had seen.
