The hero’s boyhood is wrapped in obscurity.  It is certain that no glittering precocity brought disappointment to his maturer years, and he was already nineteen when he achieved his first imprisonment.  Even then ’twas a sorry offence, which merited no more than a month, so that he returned to freedom and his fiddle with his character unbesmirched.  Serious as ever in pious exercises, he gained a scanty living as strolling musician.  There was never a tavern in Sheffield where the twang of his violin was unheard, and the skill wherewith he extorted music from a single string earned him the style and title of the modern Paganini.  But such an employ was too mean for his pride, and he soon got to work again—­this time with a better success.  The mansions of Sheffield were his early prey, and a rich plunder rewarded his intrepidity.  The design was as masterly as its accomplishment.  The grand style is already discernible.  The houses were broken in quietude and good order.  None saw the opened window; none heard the step upon the stair; in truth, the victim’s loss was his first intelligence.

But when the booty was in the robber’s own safe keeping, the empiricism of his method was revealed.  As yet he knew no secret and efficient fence to shield him from detection; as yet he had not learnt that the complete burglar works alone.  This time he knew two accomplices—­women both, and one his own sister!  A paltry pair of boots was the clue of discovery, and a goodly stretch was the proper reward of a clumsy indiscretion.  So for twenty years he wavered between the crowbar and the prison house, now perfecting a brilliant scheme, now captured through recklessness or drink.  Once when a mistake at Manchester sent him to the Hulks, he owned his failure was the fruit of brandy, and after his wont delivered (from the dock) a little homily upon the benefit of sobriety.

Meanwhile his art was growing to perfection.  He had at last discovered that a burglary demands as diligent a forethought as a campaign; he had learnt that no great work is achieved by a multitude of minds.  Before his boat carried off a goodly parcel of silk from Nottingham, he was known to the neighbourhood as an enthusiastic and skilful angler.  One day he dangled his line, the next he sat peacefully at the same employ; and none suspected that the mild mannered fisherman had under the cloud of night despatched a costly parcel to London.  Even the years of imprisonment were not ill-spent.  Peace was still preparing the great achievement of his life, and he framed from solitary reflection as well as from his colleagues in crime many an ingenious theory afterwards fearlessly translated into practice.  And when at last he escaped the slavery of the gaol, picture-framing was the pursuit which covered the sterner business of his life.  His depredation involved him in no suspicion; his changing features rendered recognition impossible.  When the exercise of his trade compelled