On reaching home, he told his parents the circumstances connected with his expulsion. He also added that he wouldn’t go to school any more; at all events, he wouldn’t go back to “yon school.” He would rather go to work. He was told that he was too young to work; for he was scarcely six years old. His father proposed to take him to the Lancaster school on the following day, for the purpose of inducing the master to take back the boy.
The next day arrived. His father came home from his work for the purpose of taking the boy to school; but Tom had disappeared. He would not go back. He went first to the fish-market, where he spent the greater part of the day. Then he went down to the Inches. From thence he went towards the logs, and whilst there with a few more boys preparing sparrow-traps, one of them called out “Tam, there’s yer faither!” Tom immediately got up, and ran away; his father, following him, called out “Stop, sir! stop, sir! come back, come back, will you!” Tom’s father was a long slender man, and could not stand much running. He soon dropt behind, while Tom went out Deeside way like a lamplighter. He never stopped until he reached the Clayholes. Not seeing his father following him, he loitered about there until it was nearly dark; he then returned, keeping a close look-out and ready to run off again. At length, about dark, he got back to the logs.
It must be mentioned that on the spare ground above the Inches large piles of logs were laid, some of them of great size. The logs were floated down the Dee, and were laid there until the timber merchants found it convenient to take them away. Little care being exercised in putting up the piles, there were often large openings left at the ends. Instead of going home, the boy got into one of these openings, and crept in as far as he could get. But though he was in a measure out of sight, he soon found that he could obtain very little shelter for the night. He was barefooted, and his clothes were thin and raggy. The wind blew through the logs, and he soon became very cold. He shivered till his teeth chattered. The squeaking and jumping of the rats, of whom there seemed to be myriads, kept him awake. It was so different from being snug in his warm bed, that he once thought of getting out of his hole and running home. But he was terrified to do that, and thus encounter his father’s strap,—his back being still so sore from the effects of his flogging at school. The cold continued to increase, especially towards the small hours of the morning. Indeed, he never experienced so bitterly cold a night in the whole course of his life.