This ill-fated youth, however, enjoyed but for a short time the benefits he derived from the kindness of his first patron, a dignitary of the church in Ireland; for the violence of his passions, which equalled at least the extent of his talents, precipitated him into an action by which he lost his favor forever, and which, in its consequences, finally proved his ruin. When he had been about half a year at the grammar-school in Dublin, to which he had been sent by his patron, he unluckily got into a dispute with a lad, much older, larger, and stronger than himself; the dispute degenerated into a quarrel, and some blows ensued, in which young Waldron suffered considerably; but in order to be revenged, he stabbed his antagonist with a penknife; and had he not been seasonably prevented, would have in all probability murdered him. The wounds which he gave did not prove so dangerous as to render the several circumstances of the quarrel which occasioned them a subject of legal investigation. The discipline of the house, (flogging,) however, was inflicted with proper severity on the perpetrator of so atrocious an offence, which irritated the unrelenting and vindictive temper of the young man to such a degree that he determined at once to run away from school, from his family, and from his friends; thus abandoning the fair prospects that he had before him, and blasting all the hopes that had been fondly, though vainly, formed of the great things that might be effected by his genius when matured by time and improved by study. His plan of escape was no sooner formed than it was carried into execution; but previously to his departure he found means to steal ten or twelve guineas from the master of the school, and a gold repeating watch from Mrs. Goldsborough, the master’s sister. With this booty, a few shirts, and two or three pair of stockings, he silently but safely effected his retreat from the school-house, in the middle of a still night in the month of May, 1771; and pursuing the great northern road all that night, and all the next day, he late in the evening arrived at the town of Drogheda, without interruption, without accident, and in a great measure without halting, without rest, and without food. The first place of safety at which young Waldron thought proper to halt, was at an obscure inn in Drogheda, where a company of strolling players happening to be at the time, it was the occasion of a new series of acquaintance, which, though formed on precipitation and on the spur of the occasion, was retained from choice and affection for a number of years.