the kennel, and being often taken out with
his father on shooting and coursing
excursions by enlightened patrons who had
dogs in training, he received from them a
lavish supply of small silver, with many
lessons, doubtless, which bore fruit in after years.

But David did not omit to send his child
to schools at which he learned religion, grammar,
writing, and arithmetic. Under one
teacher at Canon Mills he remained two
years, and was always dux of his class,
though sometimes in trouble for playing
truant—down for kipping. At the age of
ten the boy had a fever, and his education
ceased. He then devoted his mind wholly to
his father's business in the kennel. Of himself
at that age, he writes in his last days
with quiet dignity, to the satisfaction of the
respectable clergymen by whom he was
attended, "I had formed no wicked
acquaintances; but, having a bold and fearless
disposition, I, by myself, even at this early
period of life committed several depredations."

Who is not curious to know what were the
first musical notes written by a Beethoven;
what the first lines of his own that Shakespeare
saw in print; what the first company
projected by a Hogson; what the first
public theft committed by Haggart? It
was, he tells us, "stealing a bantam cock.
It belonged to a woman at the back of the
New Town, Edinburgh, and I took a great
fancy to it, for it was a real beauty. I offered
to buy; but mistress would not sell: so I got
another cock, and set the two a-fighting, and
then off with my prize." How triumphant
are these words in their simplicity. We see
the respectable clergymen in an admiring
knot behind their hero patting his back
while he writes on between his religious
exercises as a sincere penitent, and almost in
presence of the toping-cove, or hangman.
"I also tried shop-lifting, and carried off the
till of one poor woman who lived near
Stockbridge bodily. I knew all this was wrong,
but I took no time to be sorry or repent;
and what would have been the use of repenting,
for it was just all FATE?" To the creed
of his tribe he remained faithful at the last.
It is fate. That is just all. Thus it was that
he was able afterwards to make that
philosophical reply to the judge who had just been
sentencing him, a callous prisoner to death.
"Well, if a man's born to be hanged, he can't
be drowned!"

But we anticipate. One of David's earliest
adventures was the appropriation of a pony,
which he found grazing by the roadside when
he had walked some miles from home to
visit a relation. He and a boy, who was his
intimate friend and companion, rode home
together into Silvermills upon the pony's
back. They did not take the trouble to
return it, but kept it in an old hut for the
free use and abuse of all the boys in the place.
The owner, who was an egg and butter
merchant, made, at last, his appearance,
threatening punishment. "This," we are told,
"created a great noise in the town; but the
women succeeded in appeasing him, by buying
up the whole of his stock, and he went
quietly away."

At the age of twelve, young David, whose
love of liberty had caused him often to withdraw
himself from the restraints of home,
went to attend Leith races; and there, being
intoxicated, he was enlisted by a recruiting
party of the Norfolk Militia, then stationed
at Edinburgh Castle. In three months he
had learnt to beat the drum, and, after a
little more time, became reasonably expert as
a performer on the bugle. Thus were the
lessons of the barrack-room added to those of
the kennel. "I liked," says David, "the red
coat and the soldiering well enough for a
while; but I soon tired. We were too much
confined, and there was too little pay for me. I
remained in the regiment about a year, when
we were ordered off to England to be
disbanded; and, having made interest with the
commanding officer, Colonel Nilthop, I
obtained my discharge in Edinburgh. My father
was then living at the south-back of the
Canongate, and I went home to him."

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

The Apprenticeship. Barnard M'Guire, a Darling of
a Boy. Takes David with him on a Tour through
England. The Burglary. The Capture. The
Sentence of Death. The Escape. The Pistol
Shot. Is it a Murder?

NINE months of his life are now spent by
our hero at the school of Mr. Danskin, in the
Canongate; and, having there acquired a
tolerable knowledge of arithmetic and book-
keeping, we find that he was bound apprentice
for six years to Messrs. Cockburn and Baird,
millwrights and engineers. But, long before
the six years have elapsed, the firm become
bankrupt. Haggart, however, had no hand in
the confusion that arose among the finances
of his chiefs. He honestly bore to and
from the bank considerable sums of money,
and was content to draw his pocket-
money from the trousers of the stranger in
the street. As a pickpocket, we learn from
him, that his attention was at that time
confined to blunt, "owing to my want of knowledge
of the flash kanes, where I might fence
my snib'd lays." Which means in our vulgar
English that he was obliged to steal ready
money, because he did not know any receiver of
stolen goods with whom he could safely trade.

But the genius of young Haggart was not
unrecognised by one who well knew the
worth of a born thief's hand and wit. Barnard
M'Guire was no longer a youth: he was a
man who stood high in the world of pickpockets,
and it was he who became David's
patron, David's friend. "Among my
associates," our hero writes, "I had formed a
great intimacy with Barnard M'Guire, an
Irishman, a darling of a boy. He was brought
up to the trade of a tailor, in Dumfries. He