“But where were his father and mother?” I cried.
“Who knows!” said Old Brownsmith, poking at a bit of brown crust in his basin of milk. “Ike brought him to me grinning, and he said, ‘Here’s another cat for you, master.’
“I was very angry,” said the old gentleman after a pause; “but just then the little fellow—he was about a year old—put his head up through the wooden bars and looked at me, and I told one of the women to give him something to eat. After that I sent him to the workhouse, where they took care of him, and one day when he got bigger I gave him a treat, and had him here for a day’s holiday. Then after a twelvemonth, I gave him another holiday, and I should have given him two a year, only he was such a young rascal. The workhouse master said he could do nothing with him. He couldn’t make him learn anything—even his letters. The only thing he would do well was work in the garden.”
“Same as he does now, sir?” I said, for I was deeply interested.
“Same as he does now,” assented Old Brownsmith. “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?”