Children of the Dead End: The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy

CHAPTER XXXII A NEW JOB "We'll lift our time and go, lads, The long road lies before, The places that we know, lads, Will know our like no more. Foot forth! the last bob's paid out, Some see their last shift through. But the men who are not played out Have other jobs to do." —From Tramp Navvies . 'Twas towards the close of a fine day on the following summer that we were at work in the dead end of a cutting, Moleskin and I, when I, who had been musing on the quickly passing years, turned to Moleskin and quoted a line from the Bible. "Our years pass like a tale that is told," I said. "Like a tale that is told damned bad," answered my mate, picking stray crumbs of tobacco from his waistcoat pocket and stuffing them into the heel of his pipe. "It's a strange world, Flynn. Here to-day, gone to-morrow; always waitin' for a good time comin' and knowin' that it will never come. We work with one mate this evenin', we beg for crumbs with another on the mornin' after. It's a bad life ours, and a poor one, when I come to think of it, Flynn." "It is all that," I assented heartily. "Look at me!" said Joe, clenching his fists and squaring his shoulders. "I must be close on forty years, maybe on the graveyard side of it, for all I know. I've horsed it since ever I can mind; I've worked like a mule for years, and what have I to show for it all to-day, matey? Not the price of an ounce of tobacco! A midsummer scarecrow wouldn't wear the duds that I've to wrap around my hide! A cockle-picker that has no property only when the tide is out is as rich as I am. Not the price of an ounce of tobacco! There is something wrong with men like us, surely, when we're treated like swine in a sty for all the years of our life. It's not so bad here, but it's in the big towns that a man can feel it most. No person cares for the likes of us, Flynn. I've worked nearly ev'rywhere; I've helped to build bridges, dams, houses, ay, and towns! When they were finished, what happened? Was it for us—the men who did the buildin'—to live in the homes that we built, or walk through the streets that we laid down? No earthly chance of that! It was always, 'Slide! we don't need you any more,' and then a man like me, as helped to build a thousand houses big as castles, was hellish glad to get the shelter of a ten-acre field and a shut gate between me and the winds of night. I've spent all my money, have I? It's bloomin' easy to spend all that fellows like us can earn. When I was in London I saw a lady spend as much on fur to decorate her carcase with as would keep me in beer and tobacco for all the rest of my life. And that same lady would decorate a dog in ribbons and fol-the-dols, and she wouldn't give me the smell of a crust when I asked her for a mouthful of bread. What could you expect from a woman who wears the furry hide of some animal round her neck, anyhow? We are not thought as much of as dogs, Flynn. By God! them rich buckos do eat an awful lot. Many a time I crept up to a window just to see them gorgin' themselves." "I have often done the same kind of thing," I said. "Most men do," answered Joe. "You've heard of old Moses goin' up the hill to have a bit peep at the Promist Land. He was just like me and you, Flynn, wantin' to have a peep at the things which he'd never lay his claws on." "Those women who sit half-naked at the table have big appetites," I said. "They're all gab and guts, like young crows," said Moleskin. "And they think more of their dogs than they do of men like me and you. I'm an Antichrist!" "A what?" "One of them sort of fellows as throws bombs at kings." "You mean an Anarchist." "Well, whatever they are, I'm one. What is the good of kings, of fine-feathered ladies, of churches, of anything in the country, to men like me and you? One time, 'twas when I started trampin' about, I met an old man on the road and we mucked about, the two of us as mates, for months afterwards. One night in the winter time, as we were sleepin' under a hedge, the old fellow got sick, and he began to turn over and over on his beddin' of frost and his blankets of snow, which was not the best place to put a sick man, as you know yourself. As the night wore on, he got worse and worse. I tried to do the best I could for the old fellow, gave him my muffler and my coat, but the pains in his guts was so much that I couldn't hardly prevent him from rollin' along the ground on his stomach. He would do anythin' just to take his mind away from the pain that he was sufferin'. At last I got him to rise and walk, and we trudged along till we came to a house by the roadside. 'Twas nearly midnight and there was a light in one of the windows, so I thought that I would call at the door and ask for a bit of help. My mate, who bucked up somewhat when we were walkin', got suddenly worse again, and fell against the gatepost near beside the road, and stuck there as if glued on to the thing. I left him by himself and went up to the door and knocked. A man drew the bolts and looked out at me. He had his collar on back to front, so I knew that he was a clergyman. "'What do you want?' he asked. "'My mate's dyin' on your gatepost,' I said. "'Then you'd better take him away from here,' said the parson. "'But he wants help,' I said. 'He can't go a step further, and if you could give me a drop of brandy——' "I didn't get any further with my story. The fellow whistled for his dog, and a big black animal came boundin' through the passage and started snarlin' when it saw me standin' there in the doorway. "'Now, you get away from here,' said the clergyman to me. "'My mate's dyin',' I said. "'Seize him,' said the man to the dog." "What a scoundrel that man must have been," I said, interrupting Moleskin in the midst of his story. "He was only a human being, and that's about as bad as a man can be," said Joe. "Anyway, he put the dog on me and the animal bounded straight at the thick of my leg, but that animal didn't know that it was up against Moleskin Joe. I caught hold of the dog by the throat and twisted its throttle until it snapped like a dry stick. Then I lifted the dead thing up in my arms and threw it right into the face of the man who was standin' in the hallway. "'Take that an' be thankful that the worst dog of the two of you is not dead,' I shouted. 'And when it comes to a time that sees you hangin' on the lower cross-bars of the gates of heaven, waitin' till you get in, may you be kept there till I give the word for you to pass through.' "My mate was still hangin' on the gatepost when I came back, and he was as dead as a maggot. I could do nothin' for a dead man, so I went on my own, leavin' him hangin' there like a dead crow in a turnip field. Next mornin' a cop lifted me and I was charged with assaultin' a minister and killin' his dog. I got three months hard, and it was hard to tell whether for hittin' the man or killin' the dog. Anyway, the fellow got free, although he allowed a man to die at his own doorstep. I never liked clergy before, and I hate them ever since; but I know, as you know, that it's not for the likes of you and me that they work for." "Time to stop lookin' at your work, boys!" interrupted Red Billy, as he approached us, carrying his watch and eternal clasp-knife in his hands. "Be damned to you, you could look at your work all day, you love it so much. But when you go to the pay-office to-night, you'll hear a word or two that will do you good, you will!" On arriving at the pay-office, every man in turn was handed his lying time and told that his services were no longer required. Red Billy passed the money out through the window of the shack which served as money-box. Moleskin came after me, and he carefully counted the money handed to him. "Half-a-crown wrong in your tally, old cock," he said to Red Billy. "Fork out the extra two-and-a-tanner, you unsanctified, chicken-chested cheat. I didn't think that it was in your carcase to cheat a man of his lyin' time." "No cheatin'," said Billy. "Well, what the hell——!" "No cheatin'," interrupted Billy. "I'm two-and-a-tanner short——" "No cheatin'," piped Billy maliciously. "I'll burst your nut, you parrot-faced, gawky son of a Pontius Pilate, if you don't fork out my full lyin' time!" roared Moleskin. "I always charge two-and-six for a pair of boots and the same for a clasp-knife," said the ganger. Billy had a long memory, and Joe was cornered and crestfallen. I, myself, had almost forgotten about the knife which Joe had lifted from Red Billy on the morning of our arrival in Kinlochleven, and Joe had almost lost memory of it as well. "I had the best of that bargain," Red Billy went on sweetly. "The knife was on its last legs and I just intended to buy a new one. A half-crown was a good penny for a man like me to spend, so I thought that if Moleskin paid for it, kind of quiet like, it would be a very nice thing for me—a—very—nice—thing—for—me." "I grant that you have the best of me this time," said Moleskin, and a smile passed over his face. "But my turn will come next, you know. I wouldn't like to do you any serious harm, Billy, but I must get my own back. I have only to look for that old woman of yours and send her after you. I can get her address easy enough, and I have plenty of time to look for it. You don't care much for your old wife, Billy, do you?" Billy made no answer. It was rumoured that his wife was a woman with a tongue and a temper, and that Billy feared her and spent part of his time in endeavouring to get out of her way. Joe was working upon this rumour now, and the ganger began to look uncomfortable. "Of course, if I get my half-crown and another to boot, I'll not trouble to look for the woman," said Joe. "It won't be hard to find her. She'll have gone back to her own people, and it is well known that they belong to Paisley. Her brothers are all fightin' men, and ready to maul the man that didn't play fairly with their own blood relations. By God! they'll give you a maulin', Billy, when I send them after you. They'll come up here, and further until they find you out. You'll have to shank it when they come, run like hell, in fact, and lose your job and your lyin' time. If you give me seven-and-six I'll not give you away!" "I'll give you the half-crown," said Billy. "I'm losin' my time talkin' to you," said Joe pleasantly, and he pulled out his watch. "Every minute I stop here I'm goin' to put my charge up a shillin'." "I'll give you the five shillin's if you go away and keep clear of Paisley," growled the ganger. "Five shillin's! you damned cheat! Are you not content with that?" "One minute," said Joe solemnly. "Eight-and-six." "My God!" Billy cried. "You're goin' to rob me. I'll give you the seven-and-six." We were heartily enjoying it. There were over one hundred men looking on, and Joe, now master of the strained situation, kept looking steadfastly at his watch, as if nothing else in the world mattered. "Two minutes; nine-and-six," he said at the end of the stated time. "Here's your nine-and-six!" roared Billy, passing some silver coins through the grating. "Here, take it and be damned to you!" Joe put the money in his pocket, cast a benevolent glance at Billy, and my mate and I went out from Kinlochleven. We did not go into the shack which we had occupied for over a year. There was nothing there belonging to us, all our property was on our backs or in our pockets, so we turned away straight from the pay-office and took to the road again. The great procession filed down the hillside. Hundreds of men had been paid off on the same evening. The job was nearly completed, and only a few hands were required to finish the remainder of the labour. Some men decided to stay, but a great longing took possession of them at the last moment, and they followed those who were already on the road. Civilisation again! Away behind the hunchbacked mountains the sunset flamed in all its colours. Islands of jasper were enshrined in lakes of turquoise, rivers of blood flowed through far-spreading plains of dark cumulus that were enshrouded in the spell of eternal silence. Overhead the blue was of the deepest, save where one stray cloud blushed to find itself alone in the vastness of the high heavens. We were an army of scarecrows, ragged, unkempt scare crows of civilisation. We came down from Kinlochleven in the evening with the glow of the setting sun full in our faces, and never have I looked on an array of men such as we were. Some were old, lame men who might not live until they obtained their next job, and who would surely drop at their post when they obtained it. These were the veterans of labour, crawling along limply in the rear, staggering over boulders and hillocks, men who were wasted in the long struggle and who were now bound for a new place—a place where a man might die. They had built their last town and were no longer wanted there or anywhere else. Strong lusty fellows like myself took the lead. We possessed hale and supple limbs, and a mile or two of a journey meant very little to any of us. Now and again I looked behind at the followers. The great army spread out in the centre and tailed away towards the end. A man at the rear sat down and took a stone out of his boot. His comrades helped him to his feet when he had finished his task. He was a very old, decrepit, and weary man; the look of death was in his eyes, but he wanted to walk on. Maybe he would sit down again at the foot of the mountain. Maybe he would sleep there, for further down the night breezes were warmer, much warmer, than the cold winds on the hillside. Probably the old fellow thought of these things as he tumbled down the face of the mountain; and perhaps he knew that death was waiting for him at the bottom. Some sang as they journeyed along. They sang about love, about drink, about women and gambling. Most of us joined in the singing. Maybe the man at the rear sang none, but we could not hear him if he did, he was so far behind. The sun paled out and hid behind a hump of the mountain. Overhead a few stars twinkled mockingly. In the distance the streams could be heard falling over the cliffs. Still the mountain vomited out the human throng, and over all the darkness of the night settled slowly. What did the men think of as they walked down from Kinlochleven? It is hard to say, for the inmost thoughts of a most intimate friend are hidden from us, for they lack expression and cannot be put into words. As to myself, I found that my thoughts were running back to Norah Ryan and the evenings we spent on the shores of the Clyde. I was looking backward; I had no thoughts, no plans, for the future. I was now almost careless of life, indifferent towards fortune, and the dreams of youth had given place to a placid acceptance of stern realities. On the way up to the hills I had longed for things beyond my reach—wealth, comfort, and the love of fair women. But these longings had now given place to an almost unchanging calm, an indifference towards women, and an almost stoical outlook on the things that are. Nothing was to me pleasurable, nothing made me sad. During the last months in Kinlochleven I had very little desire for drink or cards, but true to custom I gave up neither. With no man except Moleskin did I exchange confidences, and even these were of the very slightest. To the rest of my mates I was always the same, except perhaps in the whisky saloon or in a fight. They thought me very strong in person and in character, but when I pried deeply into my own nature I found that I was full of vanity and weaknesses. The heat of a good fire after a hard day's work caused me to feel happier; hunger made me sour, a good meal made me cheerful. One day I was fit for any work; the next day I was lazy and heedless, and at times I so little resembled myself that I might be taken for a man of an entirely opposite character. Still, the river cannot be expected to take on the same form in shine as in shadow, in level as in steep, and in fall as in freshet. I am a creature of environment, an environment that is eternally changing. Not being a stone or clod, I change with it. I was a man of many humours, of many inconsistencies. The pain of a corn changed my outlook on life. Moleskin himself was sometimes disgusting in my sight; at other times I was only happy in his company. But all the time I was the same in the eyes of my mates, stolid, unsympathetic, and cold. In the end most of my moods went, and although I had mapped out no course of conduct, I settled into a temperate contentment, which, though far removed from gladness, had no connection with melancholy. Since I came to Kinlochleven I had not looked on a woman, and the thoughts of womankind had almost entirely gone from my mind. With the rest of the men it was the same. The sexual instinct was almost dead in them. Women were merely dreams of long ago; they were so long out of sight that the desire for their company had almost expired in every man of us. Still, it was strange that I should think of Norah Ryan as I trudged down the hillside from Kinlochleven. The men were still singing out their songs, and Joe hummed the chorus through the teeth that held his empty pipe as he walked along. Suddenly the sound of singing died and Moleskin ceased his bellowing chorus. A great silence fell on the party. The nailed shoes rasping on the hard earth, and the half-whispered curse of some falling man as he tripped over a hidden boulder, were the only sounds that could be heard in the darkness. And down the face of the mountain the ragged army tramped slowly on. CHAPTER XXXII A NEW JOB "The more you do, the more you get to do." — Cold Clay Philosophy. When we arrived in Glasgow I parted company with Moleskin Joe. I told him that I was going to work on the railway if I got an opening, but my mate had no liking for a job where the pay could be only lifted once a fortnight; he wanted his sub. every second day at least. He set out for the town of Carlisle. There was a chance of getting a real job there, he said. "Mind you, if there's a chance goin' for another man, I'll let you know about it," he added. "I would like you to come and work along with me, matey, for me and you get on well together. Keep clear of women and always stand up to your man until he knocks you out—that's if you're gettin' the worst of the fight." We parted without a handshake, as is the custom with us navvy men. He never wrote to me, for I had no address when he left, and he did not know the exact model to which he was going. Once out of each other's sight, the link that bound us together was broken, and being homeless men we could not correspond. Perhaps we would never meet again. I got a job on the railway and obtained lodgings in a dismal and crooked street, which was a den of disfigured children and a hothouse of precocious passion, in the south side of Glasgow. The landlady was an Irishwoman, bearded like a man, and the mother of several children. When indoors, she spent most of her time feeding one child, while swearing like a carter at all the others. We slept in the one room, mother, children and myself, and all through the night the children yelled like cats in the moonshine. The house was alive with vermin. The landlady's husband was a sailor who went out on ships to foreign parts and always returned drunk from his voyages. When at home he remained drunk all the time, and when he left again he was as drunk as he could hold. I had no easy job to put up with him at first, and in the end we quarrelled and fought. He accused me of being too intimate with his wife when he was away from home. I told him that my taste was not so utterly bad, for indeed I had no inclination towards any woman, let alone the hairy and unkempt person who was my landlady. I struck out for him on the stair head. Three flights of stairs led from the door of the house down to the ground floor. I threw the sailor down the last flight bodily and headlong; he threw me down the middle flight. Following the last throw he would not face up again, and I had won the fight. Afterwards the woman came to her husband's aid. She scratched my face with her fingers and tore at my hair, clawing like an angry cat. I did not like to strike her back so I left her there with her drunken sailor and went out to the streets. Having no money I slept until morning beside a capstan on Glasgow quay. Next day I obtained lodgings in Moran's model, and I stopped there until I went off to London eleven months afterwards. I did not find much pleasure in the company of my new railway mates. They were a spineless and ignorant crowd of men, who believed in clergycraft, psalm-singing, and hymn-hooting. Not one of them had the pluck to raise his hands in a stand-up fight, or his voice in protest against the conditions under which he laboured. Most of them raised their caps to the overseers who controlled their starved bodies and to the clergy who controlled their starved souls. They had no rational doctrine, no comprehension of a just God. To them God took on the form of a monstrous and irritable ganger who might be pacified by prayers instead of by the usual dole of drink. Martin Rudor was the name of my new ganger. He was very religious and belonged to the Railway Mission (whatever that is). He read tracts at his work, which he handed round when he finished perusing them. These contained little stories about the engine-driver who had taken the wrong turning, or the signalman who operated the facing points on the running line leading to hell. Martin took great pleasure in these stories, and he was an earnest supporter of the psalm-singing enthusiasts who raised a sound of devilry by night in the back streets of Glasgow. Martin said once that I was employed on the permanent way that led to perdition. I caught Martin by the scruff of the neck and rubbed his face on the slag. He never thought it proper to look out my faults afterwards. Martin ill-treated his wife, and she left him in the end. But he did not mind; he took one of his female co-religionists to his bosom and kept her in place of his legal wife, and seemed quite well pleased with the change. Meanwhile he sang hymns in the street whenever he got two friends to help and one to listen to him. What a difference between these men and my devil-may-care comrades of Kinlochleven. I looked on Martin Rudor and his gang with inexpressible contempt, and their talk of religion was a source of almost unendurable torment. I also looked upon the missions with disgust. It is a paradox to pretend that the thing called Christianity was what the Carpenter of Galilee lived and died to establish. The Church allows a criminal commercial system to continue, and wastes its time trying to save the souls of the victims of that system. Christianity preaches contentment to the wage-slaves, and hob-nobs with the slave drivers; therefore, the Church is a betrayer of the people. The Church soothes those who are robbed and never condemns the robber, who is usually a pillar of Christianity. To me the Church presents something unattainable, which, being out of harmony with my spiritual condition, jars rather than soothes. To me the industrial system is a great fraud, and the Church which does not condemn it is unfaithful and unjust to the working people. I detest missions, whether organised for the betterment of South Sea Islanders or unshaven navvies. A missionary canvasses the working classes for their souls just in the same manner as a town councillor canvasses them for their votes. I have heard of workers' missions, railway missions, navvies' missions, and missions to poor heathens, but I have never yet heard of missions for the uplifting of M.P.'s, or for the betterment of stock exchange gamblers; and these people need saving grace a great deal more than the poor untutored working men. But it is in the nature of things that piety should preach to poverty on its shortcomings, and forget that even wealth may have sins of its own. Clergymen dine nowadays with the gamblers who rob the working classes; Christ used the lash on the gamblers in the Temple. I heard no more of Norah Ryan. I longed to see her, and spent hours wandering through the streets, hoping that I would meet her once again. The old passion had come back to me; the atmosphere of the town rekindled my desire, and, being a lonely man, in the midst of many men and women, my heart was filled with a great longing for my sweetheart. But the weary months went by and still there was no sign of Norah. When writing home I made enquiries about her, but my people said that she had entirely disappeared; no Glenmornan man had seen Norah Ryan for many years. My mother warned me to keep out of Norah's company if ever I met her, for Norah was a bad woman. My mother was a Glenmornan woman, and the Glenmornan women have no fellow-feeling for those who sin. Manual labour was now becoming irksome to me, and eight shillings a week to myself at the end of six days' heavy labour was poor consolation for the danger and worry of the long hours of toil. I did not care for money, but I was afraid of meeting with an accident, when I might get maimed and not killed. It would be an awful thing if a man like me got deprived of the use of an arm or leg, and an accident might happen to me any day. In the end I made up my mind that if I was to meet with an accident I would take my own life, and henceforth I looked at the future with stoical calm. I have said before that I am very strong. There was no man on the railway line who could equal me at lifting rails or loading ballast waggons. I had great ambitions to become a wrestler and go on the stage. No workman on the permanent way could rival me in a test of strength. Wrestling appealed to me, and I threw the stoutest of my opponents in less than three minutes. I started to train seriously, bought books on physical improvement, and spent twelve shillings and sixpence on a pair of dumb-bells. During meal hours I persuaded my mates to wrestle with me. Wet weather or dry, it did not matter! We went at it shoulder and elbows in the muddy fields and alongside the railway track. We threw one another across point-rods and signal bars until we bled and sweated at our work. I usually took on two men at a time and never got beaten. For whole long months I was a complete mass of bruises, my skin was torn from my arms, my clothes were dragged to ribbons, and my bones ached so much that I could hardly sleep at night owing to the pain. I attended contests in the music-halls, eager to learn tips from the professionals who had acquired fame in the sporting world. The shunter of our ballast train was a heavy-shouldered man, and he had a bad temper and an unhappy knack of lifting his fists to those who were afraid of him. He was a strong rung of a man, and he boasted about the number of fights in which he had taken part. He was also a lusty liar and an irrepressible swearer. Nearly everyone in the job was afraid of him, and to the tune of a wonderful vocabulary of unprintable words he bullied all Martin Rudor's men into abject submission. But that was an easy task. He felt certain that every man on the permanent way feared him, and maybe that was why he called me an Irish cur one evening. We were shovelling ashes from the ballast waggons on one line into the four-foot way of the other, and the shunter stood on the foot-board of the break-van two truck lengths away from me. I threw my shovel down, stepped across the waggons, and taking hold of the fellow by the neck and waist I pulled him over the rim of the vehicle and threw him headlong down the railway slope. I broke his coupling pole over my knee, and threw the pieces at his head. The breaking of the coupling pole impressed the man very much. Few can break one over their knees. When the shunter came to the top of the slope again, he was glad to apologise to me, and thus save himself further abuse. That evening, when coming in from my work, I saw a printed announcement stating that a well-known Japanese wrestler was offering ten pounds to any man whom he could not overcome in less than five minutes in a ju-jitsu contest. He was appearing in a hall on the south side of the city, and he was well-known as an exponent of the athletic art. I went to the hall that evening, hoping to earn the ten pounds. The shunter was four stone heavier than I was, yet I overcame him easily, and the victory caused me to place great reliance on myself. I took a threepenny seat in the gallery, and waited breathless for the coming of the wrestler. Several artists appeared, were applauded or hissed, then went off the stage, but I took very little heed of their performances. All my thoughts were centred on the pose which I would assume when rising to accept the challenge. Sitting next to me was a fat foreigner, probably a seller of fish-suppers or ice-cream. I wondered what he would think of me when he saw me rise to my feet and accept the challenge. What would the girl who sat on the other side of me think? She kept eating oranges all the evening, and giggling loudly at every indecent joke made by the actors. She was somewhat the worse for liquor, and her language was far from choice. She was very pretty and knew it. A half-dressed woman sang a song, every stanza of which ended with a lewd chorus. The girl beside me joined in the song and clapped her hands boisterously when the artiste left the stage. The wrestler was the star turn of the evening, and his exhibition was numbered two on the programme. When the number went up my heart fluttered madly, and I felt a great difficulty in drawing my breath. The curtain rose slowly. A man in evening dress, bearing a folded paper in his hand, came out to the front of the stage. One of the audience near me applauded with his hands. "That's nae a wrestler, you fool!" someone shouted. "You dinna ken what you're clappin' about." "Silence!" The audience took up the word and all shouted silence, until the din was deafening. "Ladies and gentlemen," began the figure on the stage, when the noise abated. Everyone applauded again. Even the girl beside me blurted out "Hear! hear!" through a mouthful of orange juice. Those who pay threepence for their seats love to be called ladies and gentlemen. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure in introducin' U—— Y——, the well-known exponent of the art of ju-jitsu." A little dark man with very bright eyes stepped briskly on the stage, and bowed to the audience, then folded his arms over his breast and gazed into vacancy with an air of boredom. He wore a heavy overcoat which lay open at the neck and exposed his chest muscles to the gaping throng. "Everybody here has heard of U—— Y——, no doubt." The evening dress was speaking again. "He is well known in America, in England, and on the continent. At the present time he is the undefeated champion of his weight in all the world. He is now prepared to hand over the sum of ten pounds to any man in the audience who can stand against him for five minutes. Is there any gentleman in the audience prepared to accept the challenge?" "I could wrestle him mysel'," said the girl of the orange-scented breath in a whisper. Apart from that there was silence. "Is any man in the audience prepared to accept the offer and earn the sum of ten pounds?" repeated the man on the stage. "I am." Somehow I had risen to my feet, and my words came out spasmodically. Everyone in front turned round and stared at me. My seat-mate clapped her hands, and the audience followed her example. There is no need to give an account of the contest. Suffice to say that I did not collar the ten-pound note, and that I had not the ghost of a chance in the match. It only lasted for forty-seven seconds. The crowd hissed me off the stage, and I got hurriedly into the street when I regained my coat in the dressing-room. I went out into the night, sick at heart, a defeated man, with another of my illusions dashed to pieces. I took no interest in wrestling afterwards. CHAPTER XXXIII A SWEETHEART OF MINE "She learned the pitiful story, that they must suffer who live, While selling her soul in the gutters for all that the gutters give." —From Lost Souls . There was a cold air running along the street when I stepped into the open and took my way along the town to Moran's model where I lodged. I felt disappointed, vexed, and ashamed of my ludicrous exhibition on the stage. Forty-seven seconds! As I walked along I could hear the referee repeating the words over and over again. Forty-seven seconds! I was both angry and ashamed, angry at my own weakness, and ashamed of the presumption which urged me to attack a professional athlete. I walked quickly, trying to drive all memories of the night from my mind. The hour of midnight rang out, and the streets were almost deserted. Here and there a few night-prowlers stole out from some gloomy alley and hurried along, bent, no doubt, upon some fell mission which could only be carried through under cover of the darkness. Once a belated drunken man swayed in front of me, and asked for a match to light his pipe. I had none to give him, and he cursed me as I passed on. I met a few women on the streets, young girls whose cheeks were very red, and whose eyes were very bright. This was the hour when these, our little sisters, carry on the trade which means life to their bodies and death to their souls. It is so easy to recognise them! Their eyes sparkle brightly in the lamplight; they speak light and trivial words to the men whom they meet, and ever they hold their skirts lifted well over their ankles so that those whom they meet may know of the goods which they sell. The sisters of the street barter their chastity for little pieces of silver, and from them money can purchase the rightful heritage of love. These, like navvies, are outcasts and waifs of society. They are despised by those who hide imperfections under the mask of decency, men and women who are so conscious of their own shortcomings that they make up for them by censuring those of others. White slavery is now the term used in denoting these girls' particular kind of slavery. But, bad as it is, it is chosen by many women in preference to the slavery of the mill and the needle. As I write this, there are many noble ladies, famed for having founded several societies for the suppression of evils that never existed, who believe that the solution of the white slave problem can only be arrived at by flogging men who live on the immoral earnings of women. This solution if extended might meet the case. In all justice the lash should be laid on the backs of the employers who pay starvation wages, and the masters who fatten on sweated labour. The slavery of the shop and the mill is responsible for the shame of the street. A girl came out from the shadow of a doorway, and walked along the street in front of me, her head held down against the cutting breeze. Sometimes she spoke words to the men who passed her, but all went on unheeding. Only to those who were well-dressed and prosperous-looking did she speak. I thought of my own sisters away home in Ireland, and here, but for the grace of God, went one of them. At that moment I felt sick of life and sorry for civilisation and all its sin. I detected something familiar in the figure of the woman before me. Perhaps I had met the woman before. I overtook her, and when passing looked at her closely. "Under God, the day and the night, it's Dermod Flynn that's in it!" she cried in a frightened voice. I was looking at Norah Ryan. Just for a moment she was far from my thoughts, and my mind was busy with other things. I had almost lost all hopes of meeting her, and thought that she was dead or gone to a strange country. "Is this you, Norah?" I asked, coming to a standstill, and putting out the hand of welcome to her. She seemed taken aback, and placed her hand timorously in mine. Her cheeks were very red and her brow was as white as snow. She had hardly changed in features since I had last seen her, years before. Now her hair was hidden under a large hat; long ago it hung down in brown waving tresses over her shoulders. The half-timid look was still in the grey eyes of her, and Norah Ryan was very much the same girl who had been my sweetheart of old. Only, now she had sinned and her shame of all shames was the hardest to bear. "Is it ye, yerself, that's in it, Dermod Flynn?" she asked, as if not believing the evidence of her own eyes. In her voice there was a great weariness, and at that moment the sound of the waters falling over the high rocks of Glenmornan were ringing in my ears. Also I thought of an early delicate flower which I had once found killed by the cold snows on the high uplands of Danaveen, ere yet the second warmth of the spring had come to gladden the bare hills of Donegal. In those days, being a little child, I felt sorry for the flower that died so soon. "I didn't expect to meet ye here," said Norah. "Have ye been away back and home since I saw ye last?" "I have never been at home since," I answered. "Have you?" "Me go home!" she replied. "What would I be doin' goin' home now with the black mark of shame over me? Do ye think that I'd darken me mother's door with the sin that's on me heavy, on me soul? Sometimes I'm thinkin' long, but I never let on to anyone, and it's meself that would like to see the old place again. It's a good lot I'd give to see the grey boats of Dooey goin' out again beyont Trienna Bar in the grey duskus of the harvest evenin'! Do ye mind the time ye were at school, Dermod, and the way ye hit the master with the pointer?" "I mind it well," I answered. "You said that he was dead when he dropped on the form." "And do ye mind the day that ye went over beyont the mountains with yer bundle under yer arm? I met ye on the road and ye said that ye were never comin' back." "You did not care whether I returned or not," I said resentfully, unable to account for my mood of the moment. "You did not even stop to bid me good-bye." "I was frightened of ye." "Why were you frightened?" "I don't know." "But you did not even turn and look after me," I said. "That was because I knew that ye, yerself, was lookin' behind." "Do you remember the night on the 'Derry boat?" I asked. "Quite well do I mind it, Dermod," she replied. "I often be thinkin' of them days, I do, indeed." She was looking at me with wistful and pathetic eyes, and the street lamp beside us shone full on her face. There was a long interval of silence, and I did not know what to say next. Many a time had I thought of our next meeting, and my head was usually teeming with the words of welcome which I would say to her. But now I was almost at a loss for one single word. The situation was strained, and she showed signs of taking her departure. "Where are you going at this hour of the night, Norah?" I asked impulsively. "I'm goin' for a walk." "Where are you working?" Well did I know her work, but I could not resist asking her the question. The next moment I was sorry for my words. Norah's face became white, she stammered a few words about being a servant in a gentleman's house, then suddenly burst into tears. "Don't cry," I said in a lame sort of manner. "What's wrong?" She kept her eyes fixed on the pavement, and did not answer. I could see her bosom heaving, and hear the low sobs that she tried vainly to suppress. We stood there for nearly five minutes without a word. Then she held out her hand. "Slan agiv, [12] Dermod," she said. "I must be goin'. It was good of ye to speak to me in that nice way of yers, Dermod." The hand which she placed in mine was limp and cold. I struggled to find words to express my feelings at the moment, but my tongue was tied, and my mind was teeming with thoughts which I could not express. She drew her hand softly from mine and walked back the way she had come. I stood there nonplussed, feeling conscious of some great wrong in allowing that grey-eyed Irish girl to wander alone through the naked streets of Glasgow. For years I had recognised the evils of prostitution, but never had those evils come home so sharply to me as they did at that moment. Despite my cynical views on love I had always a feeling deeper than friendship for Norah Ryan, and at times when I tried to analyse this feeling I found that it was not love; it was something more constant, less rash and less wavering. It was not subject to changes or stints, it was a hold-fast, the grip of which never lessened. It was a love without any corporal end; its greatest desire did not turn to the illusive delights of the marriage bed. My love had none of the hunger of lust; it was not an appetite which might be satiated—it was something far holier and more enduring. To me Norah represented a poetical ideal; she was a saint, the angel of my dreams. Never for a moment did I think of winning her love merely for the purpose of condemning her to a hell of bearing me children. In all our poetry and music of love we delight merely in the soft glance of eyes, the warm touch of lips, the soft feel of a maiden's breast and the flutter of one heart beating against another. But all love of women leads to passion, and poetry or music cannot follow beyond a certain boundary. There poetry dies, music falters, and the mark of the beast is over man in the moments of his desire. But my love for Norah was different. To me she represented a youthful ideal which was too beautiful and pure to be degraded by anything in the world. Norah had given her love to another. Who was I that I should blame her? In her love she was helpless, for love is not the result of effort. It cannot be stopped; its course cannot be stayed. As well ask the soft spring meadows to prevent the rising freshet from wetting the green grass, as ask a maiden to stem the torrent of the love which overwhelms her. Love is not acquired; it is not a servant. It comes and is master. Norah's sufferings were due to her innocence. She was betrayed when yet a child, and a child is easily led astray. But to me she was still pure, and I knew that there was no stain on the soul of her. For a long while I stood looking after her and turning thoughts over in my mind. In the far distance I could see her stealing along the pavement like a frightened child who is afraid of the shadows. I turned and followed her, keeping well in the gloom of the houses which lined the pavement. She passed through many streets, stopping now and again to speak to the men whom she met on her journey. Never once did she look back. At the corner of Sauciehall Street, a well-dressed and half-intoxicated man stopped and spoke to her. For a few seconds they conversed; then the man linked his arm in hers and the two of them walked off together. I stood at the street corner, unable to move or act, and almost unable to think. A blind rage welled up in my heart against the social system that compelled women to seek a livelihood by pandering to the impurity of men. Norah had come to Scotland holy and pure, and eager to earn the rent of her mother's croft. She had earned many rents for the landlord who had caused me sufferings in Mid-Tyrone and who was responsible for the death of my brother Dan. To the same landlord Norah had given her soul and her purity. The young girls of Donegal come radiantly innocent from their own glens and mountains, but often, alas! they fall into sin in a far country. It is unholy to expect all that is good and best from the young girls who lodge with the beasts of the byre and swine of the sty. I felt angry with the social system which was responsible for such a state of affairs, but my anger was thrown away; it was a monstrous futility. The social system is not like a person; one man's anger cannot remedy it, one man's fist cannot strike at its iniquities. Norah had now disappeared, and with my brain afire I followed her round the turn of the street. What I intended to do was even a riddle to myself. When I overtook them the man who accompanied Norah would bear the impress of my knuckles for many days. Only of this was I certain. I turned into several streets and searched until three o'clock in the morning. But she had gone out of my sight once again. Then I went home to bed, but not to sleep. Sick at heart and a prey to remorse, I prowled through the streets for many nights afterwards, looking for Norah. I did not meet her again, and only too late did I realise the opportunity which I had let slip when I met her at midnight in the city. But meeting her as I had met her on the streets, I found myself faced with a new problem, which for a moment overwhelmed and snapped the springs of action within me. In Glenmornan Norah would now be known as "that woman," and the Glenmornan pride makes a man much superior to women who make the great mistake of life. Thank goodness! the Glenmornan pride was almost dead within my heart. I thought that I had killed it years before, but there, on the streets of Glasgow, I found that part of it was remaining when I met with Norah Ryan. It rose in rebellion when I spoke to the girl who had sinned, it checked the impulse of my heart for just a moment, and in that moment she whom I loved had passed out of my sight and perhaps out of my life. Life on the railway, always monotonous, became now dreary and dragging. Day and night my thoughts were turning to her whom I loved, and my heart went out to the girl who was suffering in a lonely town because she loved too well. I was now almost a prey to despair, and in order to divert my mind somewhat from the thoughts that embittered my life I began to write for the papers again. Ideas came to me while at work, and these I scribbled down on scraps of paper when the old psalm-singing ganger was not watching me. When I got back to Moran's in the evening I worked the ideas into prose or verse which I sent out to various papers. Many of my verses appeared in a Glasgow paper, and I got paid at the rate of three-and-sixpence a poem. Later on I wrote for London weeklies, and these paid me better for my work. Some editors wrote very nice letters to me, others sent my stuff back, explaining that lack of space prevented them from publishing it. I often wondered why they did not speak the truth. A navvy who generally speaks the truth finds it difficult to distinguish the line of demarcation which runs between falsehood and politeness. Most of my spare evenings I gave up to writing, but often I found myself out in the street where I had met Norah Ryan, and sometimes I wandered there until four o'clock in the morning, but never once set eyes on her. A literary frenzy took possession of me for a while. I bought second-hand books on every subject, and studied all things from the infinitely great to the infinitesimally little. Microbes and mammoths, atoms and solar systems—I learned a little of all and everything of none. I wrote, not for the love of writing as much as to drown my own introspective humours, but in no external thing was I interested enough to forget my own thoughts. I studied literary style, and but for that I might have by this time cultivated a style of my own; I read so much that now I have hardly an original idea left. Only lately have I come to the conclusion that true art, the only true art, is that which appeals to the simple people. When writing this book I have been governed by this conclusion, and have endeavoured to tell of things which all people may understand. Most of my articles and stories came back with the precision of boomerangs, weapons of which I have heard much talk, and which are said to come back to the hand of the man who throws them away; some were published and never paid for, and some never came back at all. Suddenly it occurred to me that editors might like to publish articles on subjects which were seldom written about. I wrote about the navvies' lives again; the hopes and sorrows and aspirations of the men of the hovel, model, and road. Several papers took my articles, and for a while I drew in a decent penny for my literary work. Indeed, I had serious intentions of giving up manual labour and taking to the pen for good. Some of my stories again appeared in the Dawn , the London daily paper which had published my Kinlochleven stories, and on one fine morning I received a letter from the editor asking me to come and take a job on the staff of his paper. He offered me two pounds a week as salary, and added that I was certain to attain eminence in the position which was now open to me. I decided to go, not because I had any great desire for the job, but because I wanted to get rid of old Rudor and his gang, and I also wanted to see London. Being wise enough to throw most of the responsibility on the person who suggested such a change in my life and work, I answered the editor, saying that though I was a writer among navvies I might merely be a navvy among writers, and that journalistic work was somewhat out of my line. Still the editor persisted and enclosed the cost of my railway fare to London. To go I was not reluctant, to leave I was not eager. I accepted because the change promised new adventures, but there was no excitement in my heart, for now I took things almost as they came, unmoved and uncaring. Norah had gone out of my life, which, full of sorrow for losing her, was empty without her. The enthusiasm which once winged my way along the leading road to Strabane was now dead within me. I washed the dirt of honest work from my hands and face, and the whole result of seven years' hard labour was dissipated in the wash-tub. Then I went out and bought two ready-made suits and several articles of attire which I felt would be necessary for my new situation. I packed these up, and with my little handbag for company I went out from Moran's model by Glasgow wharf, and caught the night express for London.

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