death, "feelings of remorse operated greatly
upon him;" but he goes on to say that
"when recovery set in, even while in a feeble
and weak state, he attempted little enterprises
of shop-lifting. But he lived at-home,
kept such good hours, and made his
absences so short, that his parents thought
he could not be doing anything that was
wrong." A "paltry adventurer," having
implicated him in a mean theft of a roll of
tobacco, which it was beneath his dignity to
think of committing, David was caught, and
brought before the magistrate. A lost firkin
of butter was then laid at his door. The
proof was inadequate. He had effectually
blinded his own family, and he was released
after ten days in Calton Hill Jail, when his
uncles became cautioners on his behalf. Not
many days afterwards, two ladies Mrs. Kean
and Kate Cameron "both completely flash as
well as game," entered with him into a
considerable enterprise of shoplifting upon a
draper. The ladies being taken, betrayed
their companion, but he made out so good a
defence before the magistrate, that he was
only ordered to find bail.

This was about the middle of January,
eighteen hundred and nineteen, when Haggart
was between seventeen and eighteen
years of age. He remained quiet at-home
for a month afterwards, when one night,
going up Cowgate, "I met," he says, "George
Bagrie, and another cove whom I did not
know. Bagrie asked me what I was doing.
I said, 'Nothing!' upon which he replied:

"It is a pity such a good workman should
be idle."

They accordingly joined efforts at once, on
the same night, "earning a watch and chain."
On the next day, they started for Musselburgh,
and did an important stroke of business in
the lifting of some costly bales out of a
merchant-tailor's shop. David again had left his
father's house, and soon afterwards, for acts
of violence, was imprisoned for four months
in Bridewell. It seems to have been soon
after this time, that his mother died of a
broken heart.

When released from Bridewell, whither he
had been carried, hitting out right and left
at the menials of justice, he lived quietly for
five weeks, and ate heartily to recover the
strength taken out of him by bread and
water diet. As soon as he had got stouter,
and could stand a brush, he went off to Leith
with two associates, a baker and an umbrella
maker, who agreed with him that "Leith
was a pretty good place for a few adventures."
They took lodgings in the Kirkgate,
and remained eight or ten days. From Leith
they went to Perth, with a Perth man, whom
they left there, and at Perth fair joined to
their company, an able pickpocket, named
Doctor Black. From Perth they went to
Aberdeen "accompanied by a fifth cove."

At Aberdeen races, David and the Doctor
kept together, and collected not fewer than
thirty pocket-books, but "not so much as would
sweeten a grawler in the whole of them: we
planted them all in a cornstalk near the race-
ground." A day or two afterwards, the
whole party was seized, and David and the
Doctor spent two months together in the
Bridewell. Being released, they travelled
back to Edinburgh, robbing their way on.
On Christmas Day, being at Leith, David
entered a house after dark, and obtained a
watch, the silver spoons, and a pair of boots.
On New Year's morning, he was at work in
Edinburgh, with two fresh associates, and
received as his share of the produce of that
morning's work, five silver watches and a
gold one. So the new year eighteen
hundred and twenty began prosperously. On
the eighteenth of January he was arrested
on suspicion of a robbery, but after two
days' detention, released upon finding bail.
At the same time, his two companions of
New Year's Day were in the lock-up house,
and David, mindful of his friends, undermined
the jailor's watchfulness with drink,
took his keys from him, and let out, not
his friends only, but also four other prisoners.
Then he went over to Leith, and did good
business by shop-lifting, and the dashing of
his hands through shop-window panes, as a
pickpocket, and by entering a house or two.
At Leith he was seized by the police, and
after a desperate fight with them for his
liberty, was carried to the jail, "streaming
all over with blood." Having obtained a
file, David contrived, after a detention of two
weeks, to break his way out of this prison,
together with an associate. Once free, they
ran to Dalkeith, without stopping, where
they procured, on the same night, in the way
of business, twelve yards of superfine blue
cloth, which they carried on to Kelso.
Arrived with all possible speed at Dumfries,
they attended the market, and found money
plentiful. David also obtained a tolerable
sum for property which he removed one
evening out of the house of one Mr. Christian
Graham. Here, too, our hero fell in
again with his old friend, Barney M'Guire.
They met only to part. Barney, wearing his
friend's coat, was arrested by mistake for
David, but being taken, there was reason
why he should be kept, and transported to
Botany Bay. David started for Carlisle, but
was pursued and caught by the Dumfries
police, and passed back to the authorities in
Leith. Then he was tried in Edinburgh for
one act of housebreaking, eleven acts of
theft, and one act of prison-breaking. The
jury brought him in guilty of theft only:
but there was informality, and after lying
unsentenced in Edinburgh jail, the prisoner
was forwarded to Dumfries, there to be
tried for the business he had been doing in
those parts. On the way he was detained
two days in the jail of Peebles, and saw a
way of escape from it, but the shamefully
rotten state of the jail blankets, which