Page:Singular life, adventures, and depredations of David Haggart, the murderer.pdf/12

12 in pursuit of him; he crossed the field at a slapping pace, and made for Cumlungan Wood, he bolted over a very deep ditch covered with briars, and ran a few steps along the side of the hedge, to make the policemen think he was going into the wood; he then wheeled round, louted, and when they went up one side of the ditch he ran down the other; little did they know he was so near them, he could have breathed upon John Richardson as he passed him. In this way he came to the cross road, which leads from the Nith to the public road and never did a fox double the hounds in better style.

He then made for Annan; and getting on a mile or two on the Carlisle road, he went into a belt of planting. Watching an opportunity, he dived into a hay-stack, and lay there till next day at two o'clock in the afternoon, when he heard a woman ask a boy if that lad was taken who had broke out of Dumfries jail. The boy answered 'No; but the jailor died last night.' On hearing this, Haggart lay insensible for a good while. He left the stack, and seeing a scarecrow in a field, he took some of the old clothes, and put them on to disguise himself. On the Wednesday night he slept in a hay loft; in the morning two men were feeding their horses, and he overheard them speaking about him; he started for Carlisle, and