ce visited. He must therefore
have known Carlyle, who had not then left his native village. In 1820 we
find him in Edinburgh, carrying on the same sort of depredations both
there and at Leith--now he steals a silk plaid, now a greatcoat, and now
a silver teapot. These thefts, of course, landed him in jail, out of
which he breaks rather dramatically, fleeing with a companion to Kelso.
He had, indeed, more than one experience of jail. Finally, we find him
in the prison of Dumfries destined to stand his trial for 'one act of
house-breaking, eleven cases of theft, and one of prison-breaking.'
While in prison at Dumfries he planned another escape, and in the
attempt to hit a jailer named Morrin on the head with a stone he
unexpectedly killed him. His escape from Dumfries jail after this
murder, and his later wanderings, are the most dramatic part of his
book. He fled through Carlisle to Newcastle, and then thought that he
would be safer if he returned to Scotland, where he found the rewards
that were offered for his arrest faced him wherever he went. He turned
up again in Edinburgh, where he seems to have gone about freely,
although reading everywhere the notices that a reward of seventy guineas
was offered for his apprehension. Then he fled to Ireland, where he
thought that his safety was assured. At Dromore he was arrested and
brought before the magistrate, but he spoke with an Irish brogue, and
declared that his name was John McColgan, and that he came from Armagh.
He escaped from Dromore jail by jumping through a window, and actually
went so far as to pay three pound ten shillings for his passage to
America, but he was afraid of the sea, and changed his mind, and lost
his passage money at the last moment. After this he made a tour right
through Ireland, in spite of the fact that the Dublin _Hue and Cry_ had
a description of his person which he read more than once. His assurance
was such that in Tullamore he made a pig-driver apologise before the
magistrate for charging him with theft, although he had been living on
nothing else all the time he was in Ireland. Finally, he was captured,
being recognised by a policeman from Edinburgh. He was brought from
Ireland to Dumfries, landed in Calton jail, Edinburgh, and was tried and
executed. In addition to composing this biography Haggart wrote while in
Edinburgh jail a rather long set of verses, of which I give the
following two as specimens (the original autograph is in Lord Cock