He settled at Denbigh in a small house which he was enabled
to furnish by means of two or three small sums which he recovered for
work done a long time before. Shortly after his return, his father died,
and the lawyer seized the little property "for the old curse," and turned
Tom's mother out.

After his return from the South Tom went about for some time playing
interludes, and then turned his hand to many things. He learnt the trade
of stonemason, took jobs, and kept workmen. He then went amongst certain
bricklayers, and induced them to teach him their craft; "and shortly," as
he says, "became a very lion at bricklaying. For the last four or five
years," says he, towards the conclusion of his history, "my work has been
to put up iron ovens and likewise furnaces of all kinds, also grates,
stoves and boilers, and not unfrequently I have practised as a smoke
doctor."

The following feats of strength he performed after his return from South
Wales, when he was probably about sixty years of age:--

"About a year after my return from the South," says he, "I met with an
old carrier of wood, who had many a time worked along with me. He and I
were at the Hand at Ruthyn along with various others, and in the course
of discourse my friend said to me: 'Tom, thou art much weaker than thou
wast when we carted wood together.' I answered that in my opinion I was
not a bit weaker than I was then. Now it happened that at the moment we
were talking there were some sacks of wheat in the hall which were going
to Chester by the carrier's waggon. They might hold about three bushels
each, and I said that if I could get three of the sacks upon the table,
and had them tied together, I would carry them into the street and back
again; and so I did; many who were present tried to do the same thing,
but all failed.

"Another time when I was at Chester I lifted a barrel of porter from the
street to the hinder part of the waggon solely by strength of back and
arms."

He was once run over by a loaded waggon, but strange to say escaped
without the slightest injury.

Towards the close of his life he had strong religious convictions, and
felt a loathing for the sins which he had committed. "On their account,"
says he in the concluding page of his biography, "there is a strong
necessity for me to consider my ways and to inquire about a Saviour,
since it is utterly impossible for me to save myself without obtaining
knowledge of the merits o