the mouth of the cloy, when Barney neatly
interposed his forks and brought them with
him. It was the duty of the other York to
have taken them when raised, but Barney
was too quick for him. So neatly was this
done that the two snibs saw nothing of it."

When David and his friends were at
Newcastle they found it prudent to go into
respectable private lodgings where they were
received into the family of a worthy lady who
had three daughters, very pleasant girls. This
family kept merry Christmas with the
intelligent and lively monied gentlemen who were
travelling for pleasure, and who, while
staying at Newcastle, paid their rent so
well,—Mr. John Wilson, Mr. James Arkison,
and brother. "Indeed," says our hero, "Barney
and I were great swells in Newcastle,
with our white-caped coats, top-boots, and
whips. We frequented the theatre and other
places of public amusement; to the former of
these two of the Misses—— often
accompanied us." But the persevering men did not
neglect their business. Thus, one evening,
from a box in the theatre, Barney observed a
fat pocket-book in the pit. He told the ladies
that he felt faint, and went out of the box.
As the audience departed he rejoined them
and said, tapping the hand of David with the
pocket-book, "I feel much better now." On
another evening, in a box at the theatre, a
gold chain was taken from the neck of a lady
who sat in the row before them. During the
month's residence at Newcastle seventy
pounds were taken in the business; but that,
says David, "did not defray our expenses by
fourteen pounds."

In January eighteen hundred and eighteen
the age of David Haggart being sixteen years
and a-half, he and Barney had arrived at
Durham to attend the fair, and in the evening
took a long stroll out of town on the York
road. On that road and on that evening they
distinguished themselves by an achievement
which our hero describes with simple dignity
in a few words: "We came," he says, "to a
house in a lonely place, and we immediately
determined to break into it. Barney entered
by a window, and I followed him. We met
with strong resistance from the master of the
house; but Barney knocked him down and
we succeeded in binding him hand and foot,
and gagged him with a handkerchief. The
rest of the family seemed to be all women;
but they were so terrified that they did not
interrupt our proceedings. We got about
thirty pounds, with which we returned to
Durham." Our friends were, for this act,
arrested on suspicion and dismissed; arrested
again,—tried—convicted, and sent back to
prison, there to await sentence of death at the
end of the assizes.

Now it was that our hero first
developed that great talent for prison-breaking,
which has added so much to the exquisite
romance and startling interest of his career.
He contrived, with Barny and others, to
pierce through a wall, seize a turnkey, bind
him, gag him, take possession of his keys, open
the doors, scale wall. But, suddenly, the cry
was raised, and David was the only prisoner
who made good his escape. He, being free,
went back with a Yorkshireman to Newcastle,
and remained there a day, engaged in getting
a spring saw for his friend Barney. "This
being got," he writes, "we were returning to
Durham, when we were pursued by two
bulkies (constables)." "They got close upon us on
a wild part of the road, before we were
observed. Just as they were springing on me,
I laid one of them low with my pistol; whether
I have his murder to answer for I cannot
tell; but I fear my aim was too true, and the
poor fellow looked dead enough. The
Yorkshireman knocked down the other. We got
safely to Durham; and in the night time I
got over the backwall of the jail by means of
a rope-ladder, and succeeded in giving Barney
the fiddlestick (spring saw.) He made his
escape that same night, by cutting the iron
bars of his cell-window, and came off with me
to Newcastle." A few days afterwards Barney
was caught in the act of larceny by a stout
farmer in Scotland, and got three months
imprisonment in Jedburgh jail. David
returned as Mr. John Wilson, to his private
lodgings in Newcastle, earned his bread
quietly with his fingers, danced at the
wedding of one of the young ladies, and at last, in
the happy month of June, took leave of
Mrs.—— and her worthy daughters with
sincere regret and sorrow at parting on both sides.
"Never will I forget the kindness and even
friendship of these good people to me. Little
did they know whom they were harbouring
and introducing to the most of their acquaintances
and relations."

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

The Hero settles in Business as a Shop-lifter in
Edinburgh. Captures. Escapes. Murder. Flight.

RETURNED to Edinburgh, Haggart put up
at the house of a dealer in stolen goods, and
worked for about three months with William
Henry, a well-known snib, during which
time he was engaged chiefly in that branch
of his art known to some as shop-lifting, but
known to him as "working at the hoys and
coreing." This business not proving so
lucrative as the purse and pocket-book line,
the new partners agreed "to take a country
stroll." After one or two adventures, illness
obliged our hero to return to the capital,
where he met with a new friend in George
Bagrie, a willing, but poor snib, and returned
to his father's house, giving no account of
his time during absence; but promising to
live a quiet life, and work at his old business
of millwright. He was well received, and
three days after his return, being on the
point of slipping out for a night's pleasure,
he became so seriously ill, that he kept his
bed for a month afterwards. He describes
in an edifying way, how, when sick unto