Page:Life and adventures of David Haggart.pdf/4

 he put the poney into an outhouse which was formerly built for a caddie; he kept it there for several days, until the owner found it out by accident. At Leith Races, in 1813, he enlisted in the Norfolk Militia, and learned the drum and bugle-horn; the regiment was disbanded in 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, when he was put as an apprentice to the millwright and engineering business, with Cockburn and Baird, in the Cannongate, where he behaved with honesty, and was very well liked by his employers, Mr. Baird particularly had a great liking to him, he was entrusted to pay in and draw out considerable sums at the Bank, and was in every respect a confidential servant. The affairs of his masters having been involved in bankruptcy, he was thrown idle, and of course, a burden upon his parents.

At this time he got acquainted with many worthless characters, among whom was one Barnard M'Guire, an Irishman, a darling of a boy, who had been bred a tailor in Dumfries; he was older than Haggart, of great bodily strength, and a most skilful pickpoeketpickpocket [sic].—Barney put him up to a number of tricks, and they agreed to travel together, in August, 1817, when just on the point of going to England, they past a day at Portobello Races, and picked a gentleman's pocket of eleven pounds, the first ever Haggart attempted in day-light; with this they took outside places on the Jedburgh coach, and got themselves genteelly dressed. They attended St. James' fair at Kelso, and picked twenty pounds from two persons. From thence they went to Dumfries, and stopped three weeks; they attended Lockerby fair, and going into a public-house,