Page:Singular life, adventures, and depredations of David Haggart, the murderer.pdf/20

20 by himself, while under sentence of death; and thus, though the remembrance of the evil he committed survives him, unfortunately no good is recorded of him, excepting his, we hope, not too late repentance. His adventures fall far short of those of Barrington, Vaux, &c.—he must be classed as the hero of a humbler sphere, without the atrocity that marks a kind of criminal grandeur, and demands abhorrent vengeance, while lesser villanies only contemptuous stripes. He committed, however, at least one murder, that of Morrin, the turnkey of Dumfries jail, for which he suffered the merited sentence of the law. He never appears to have wanted courage in any of the appalling incidents or dangers to which his turpitude exposed him.

He was tall in stature, and of a commanding aspect; limbs so flexible, that they could turn any way at pleasure, and legs that in speed resembled the deer when first started from its native plains.

He mentioned some peculiar circumstances an over-hasty birth, and two teeth when born with an unusual forwardness of intellect an speech. Surely they were gifts not to be misused. On one of his apprehensions, being under close confinement in Edinburgh, he said, "I cannot help it; I was born for thief; look at my fingers, they are all of an equal length, like the prongs of a fork, an