that he would put on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her
northern home by this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcome gave
her, and which his son and his son's son after him, through all their
difficulties and distresses, always found means to pay.

What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, no doubt, more
than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. A year after he actually
ran away, not from school, but from home; and appeared one morning, gaunt
and hungry, at Sarah's cottage two hundred miles away from Clapham, who
housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for him--washed him, with
many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which
slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose sure
instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome's own quick intelligence, had made him
at once aware whither the young runaway had fled. The poor father came
horsewhip in hand--he knew of no other law or means to maintain his
authority; many and many a time had his own father, the old weaver, whose
memory he loved and honoured, strapped and beaten him. Seeing this
instrument in the parent's hand, as Mr. Newcome thrust out the weeping
trembling Sarah and closed the door upon her, Tommy, scared out of a
sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate; and,
getting up out of bed, received his punishment without a word. Very
likely the father suffered more than the child; for when the punishment
was over, the little man, yet trembling and quivering with the pain, held
out his little bleeding hand and said, "I can--I can take it from you,
sir;" saying which his face flushed, and his eyes filled, for the first
time; whereupon the father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced
the boy and kissed him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more
--flung the whip away from him and swore, come what would, he would never
strike him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy
reconciliation. The three dined together in Sarah's cottage. Perhaps the