It was a hapless thing that this eagerly inquiring child had no one to direct him in a way likely to be useful. His father and mother had no sympathy for his love of nature. All they cared about was to have him apprenticed to some regular trade, by which he would gain his living. At length they succeeded in apprenticing him to a shoemaker, named Begg, who proved to be a dissolute drunken vagabond, very ill qualified to teach the boy his business. Tam, however, learnt to make upper-leathers, and was proceeding to make shoe-bottoms, when all went wrong on the discovery that he brought boxes of butterflies and such like to the workshop; the sight of them usually throwing Begg into a rage. Doubtless, it was indiscreet to bring his pet animals with him; but there ought to have been allowances on account of his youth, as well as from the fact that he never spent a moment of his master's time on his amusements. One afternoon, when waiting till his master came in to allow him to go to dinner, and while he had no work to do, he amused himself with a young sparrow which he had taught to do a number of little tricks. The master, entering in a drunken fury, struck Edward such a blow as laid him flat on the floor, and then trampled the bird with his foot. Picking up the poor and innocent creature, Tam found it was still breathing. He put it tenderly in his bosom, and went home crying over the unprovoked outrage. Shewing the mangled and dead bird to his mother, he said he did not care so much for himself, if only the bird had been spared, adding that 'if Begg struck him again without a cause, he would certainly run away. She strongly remonstrated against this, because, being bound apprentice for six years, he must serve out his time, come what would.'