4
mitted several depredations by himself
The first of these was stealing a Bantam cock from a woman at the back of the New Town, Edinburgh. Having taken a fancy to it, be offered to buy it, but the woman would not sell it; he fell on the scheme of putting another cock of his own a-fighting, and then came off with his prize. His next was lifting a shop till from a poor woman in Stock-Bridge. Being some miles from town and tired, he mounted a pony which was grazing on the road side, and rode home, where he kept it for sometime, in an out house, where he had formerly kept a Cuddie; he kept it there for several days, until the owner found it out by accident. At Leith races in 1813, he enlisted in the Nohfolk Militia, and learned the Drum and Bugle horn; the Regiment was disbanded about a year afterwards, and he was discharged. His father was then living in the south back of the Cannongate, Edinburgh, and he went home, where he was put as an apprentice to the Millwright and engineering business, with Cockburn and Baird, in the Cannongate
