Incidentally he refers to a girl with whom he was in love.

Her name was Mary Hill She belonged to Ecclefechan, which Haggart more than once 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.