"Then one day after I had given him his treat, I suppose when he was about ten years old, I found him in the garden.

He had run away from the workhouse school." "And did he stay here, sir ?" "No, I sent him back, Grant, and he ran away again.

I sent him back once more, but he came back; and at last I got to be tired of it, for the more I sent him back the more he came." The old gentleman chuckled and finished his bread and milk, while I waited to hear more.
"I say I got tired of it at last, for I knew they flogged and locked up the boy, and kept him on bread and water; but it did him no good; he would run away.

He used to come here, through the gate if it was open, over the wall when it was shut, and he never said a word, only hung about like a dog.
"I talked to him, coaxed him, and told him that if he would be a good lad, and learn, I would have him to work some day, and he stared at me just as if he were some dumb animal, and when I had done and sent him off, what do you think happened, Grant ?" "He came back again, sir." "Yes: came back again as soon as he could get away, and at last, being a very foolish sort of old man, I let him stop, and he has been here ever since." "And never goes to school ?" "Never, Grant, I tried to send him, but I could only get him there by blows, and I gave that up.

I don't like beating boys." I felt a curious shiver run through me as he said this, and I saw him smile, but he made no allusion to me, and went on talking about Shock.
"Then I tried making a decent boy of him, giving him clothes, had a bed put for him in the attic, and his meals provided for him here in the kitchen." "And wasn't he glad ?" I said.
"Perhaps he was," said Old Brownsmith, quietly, "but he didn't show it, for I couldn't get him to sleep in the bed, and he would not sit down to his meals in the kitchen; so at last I grew tired, and took to paying him wages, and made arrangements for one of the women who comes to work, to find him a lodging, and he goes there to sleep sometimes." I noticed that he said _sometimes_, in a peculiar manner, looking at me the while.