Thomas
kept his promise, with the result that his fellows, finding they
might torment him with safety, tormented him without mercy.
In a book called Sartor Resartus which Carlyle wrote later, and
which here and there was called forth by a memory of his own
life, he says:
"My schoolfellows were boys, most rude boys, and obeyed the
impulse of rude nature which bids the deer herd fall upon any
stricken hart, the duck flock put to death any broken-winged
brother or sister, and on all hands the strong tyrannise over the
weak."
So Thomas at school was unhappy and lonely and tormented. But
one day, unable to bear the torment longer, he flew at one of the
biggest bullies in the school.
The result was a fight in which Thomas got the worst, but, he had
shown his fellows what he could do, he was tormented no longer.
Yet ever afterwards he bore an unhappy remembrance of those days
at school.
After three years his school-days came to an end. He was not yet
fourteen, but he had proved himself so eager a scholar that his
father decided to send him to college and let him become a
minister.
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