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of the stairs. Haggart rushed past them, crossed the stairs as steadily as he could, pulled the key from his pocket, and opened the outer door.
On getting out at the door he ran round the east corner of the jail wall and then walked rapidly round the back street, and round a great part of the town, till he came to the back of the King's Arms Inn. Dunbar made up to him, and that very moment they saw a policeman coming right up to meet them; on this they wheeled about and ran, but Dunbar was taken before he ran ten yards, and Haggart had the mortification to see his fellow adventurer secured. He once thought of bolting among them to rescue him, but the mob was too great for him. He went up through the yard of the King's Arms without meeting any body, crossed the High Street, and ran down the Vennel to the Nith. He kept along the water side till he got away to the east of Cumlungan Wood, having run nearly ten miles in less than an hour. He then got on the high road to Annan, when he saw a post chaise at full gallop almost within twenty yards of him. Upon this he buttoned his coat, and leapt a hedge into a field where some people were raising potatoes. They all joined the policemen who had got out of the chaise in pursuit of him; he crossed the field at a slaping 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 around, 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
