Then home the prize she straight did bring,
And they all allow’d he was just the thing.
At twelve years old, I have been told,
The youth was sturdy, stout, and bold;
He learn’d to curse, to swear, and fight,
And everything but read and write.
But when he came to man’s estate,
His mind it ran on something great,
A-thieving then he scorn’d to tramp;
So hir’d a pad and went on the scamp.