FOOTNOTES:

"Oh! fare you well to the bricks and mortar!And fare you well to the hod and lime!For now I'm courtin' the ganger's daughter,And soon I'll lift my lyin' time."

"Oh! fare you well to the bricks and mortar!

And fare you well to the hod and lime!

For now I'm courtin' the ganger's daughter,

And soon I'll lift my lyin' time."

He finished off at that, as I came near, and I noticed a heavy bulge under his left oxter between the coat and waistcoat. It was something new; I asked him what it was, but he wouldn't tell me. The road ran through a rocky moor, but here and there clumps of hazel bounded our way. We could see at times soft-eyed curious Highland steers gazing out at us from amongst the bushes, as if they were surprised to see human beings in that deserted neighbourhood. When we stood and looked at them they snorted in contempt and crashed away from our sight through the copsewood.

"I think that we'll doss here for the night," said Moleskin when we had walked about a mile further. He crawled over a wayside dyke and threw down the bundle which he had up to that time concealed under his coat. It was a dead hen.

"The corpse of a hen," said Joe with a laugh. "Now we've got to drum up," he went on, "and get some supper before the dew falls. It is a hard job to light a fire when the night is on."

From experience I knew this to be the case; so together we broke rotten hazel twigs, collected some dry brambles from the undergrowth and built them in a heap. Joe placed some crisp moss under the pile; I applied a match and in a moment we had a brightly blazing fire. I emptied my pockets, proud to display the results of the afternoon's work, which, when totalled, consisted of four slices of bread, twopence, and about one half-ounce of tobacco. Joe produced some more bread, his penny, and three little packets which contained tea, sugar, and salt. These, he told me, he had procured from a young girl in a ploughman's cottage.

"But the hen, Moleskin—where did you get that?" I asked, when I had gathered in some extra wood for the fire.

"On the king's highway, Flynn," he added with a touch of pardonable pride. "Coaxed it near me with crumbs until I nabbed it. It made an awful fuss when I was wringing its neck, but no one turned up, more by good luck than anything else. I never caught any hen that made such a noise in all my life before."

"You are used to it then!" I exclaimed.

"Of course I am," was the answer. "When you are on the road as long as I've been on it, you'll be as big a belly-thief[10]as myself."

It was fine to look around as the sun went down. Far west the sky was a dark red, the colour of old wine. A pale moon had stolen up the eastern sky, and it hung by its horn from the blue above us. Looking up at it, my thoughts turned to home, and I wondered what my own people would say if they saw me out here on the ghostly moor along with old Moleskin.

I searched around for water, and found a little well with the moon at the bottom. As I bent closer the moon disappeared, and I could see the white sand beneath. I thought that the well was very holy, it looked so peaceful and calm out there alone in the wild place. I said to myself, "Has anybody ever seen it before? What purpose does it serve here?" I filled the billies, and when turning away I noticed that a pair of eyes were gazing at me from the depths of the near thicket where a heavy darkness had settled. I felt a little bit frightened, and hurried towards the fire, and once there I looked back. A large roan steer came into the clearing and drank at the well. Another followed, and another. Their spreading horns glistened in the moonshine, and Joe and I watched them from where we sat.

"Will I take some more water here?" I asked my mate, as he cleaned out the hen, using the contents of the second billy in the operation.

"Wait a minute till all the bullocks have drunk enough," he replied. "It's a pity to drive them away."

The fowl was cooked whole on the ashes, and we ate it with great relish. When the meal was finished, Moleskin flung away the bones.

"The skeleton of the feast," he remarked sadly.

Next day was dry, and we got plenty of food, food enough and to spare, and we made much progress on the journey north. Joe had an argument with a ploughman. This was the way of it.

Coming round a bend of the road we met a man with the wet clay of the newly turned earth heavy on his shoes. He was knock-kneed in the manner of ploughmen who place their feet against the slant of the furrows which they follow day by day. He was a decent man, and he told Moleskin as much when my mate asked him for a chew of tobacco.

"I dinna gang aboot lookin' for work and prayin' to God that I dinna get it, like you men," said the plougher. "I'm a decent man, and I work hard and hae no reason to gang about beggin'."

I was turning my wits upside down for a sarcastic answer, when Joe broke in.

"You're too damned decent!" he answered. "If you weren't, you'd give a man a plug of tobacco when he asks for it in a friendly way, you God-forsaken, thran-faced bell-wether, you!"

"If you did your work well and take a job when you get one, you'd have tobacco of your own," said the ploughman. "Forbye you would have a hoose and a wife and a dinner ready for you when you went hame in the evenin'. As it is, you're daunderin' aboot like a lost flea, too lazy to leeve and too afeard to dee."

"By Christ! I wouldn't be in your shoes, anyway," Joe broke in quietly and soberly, a sign that he was aware of having encountered an enemy worthy of his steel. "A man might as well expect an old sow to go up a tree backwards and whistle like a thrush, as expect decency from a nipple-noddled ninny-hammer like you. If you were a man like me, you would not be tied to a woman's apron strings all your life; you would be fit to take your turn and pay for it. Look at me! I'm not at the beck and call of any woman that takes a calf fancy for me."

"Who would take a fancy to you?"

"You marry a wench and set up a beggarly house," saidJoe, without taking any heed of the interruption. "You work fourteen or fifteen hours a day for every day of the year. If you find the company of another woman pleasant you have your old crow to jaw at you from the chimney corner. You'll bring up a breed of children that will leave you when you need them most. Your wife will get old, her teeth will fall out, and her hair will get thin, until she becomes as bald as the sole of your foot. She'll get uglier until you loathe the sight of her, and find one day that you cannot kiss her for the love of God. But all the time you'll have to stay with her, growl at her, and nothin' before both of you but the grave or the workhouse. If you are as clever a cadger as me why do you suffer all this?"

"Because I'm a decent man," said the plougher.

Joe straightened up as if seriously insulted. "Well, I'm damned!" he muttered and continued on his journey. "It's the first time ever I got the worst of an argument, Flynn," he said after we had gone out of the sight of the ploughman, and he kept repeating this phrase for the rest of the day. For myself, I thought that Joe got the best of the argument, and I pointed out the merits of his sarcastic remarks and proved to him that if his opponent had not been a brainless man, he would be aware of defeat after the first exchange of sallies.

"But that about the decent man was one up for him," Joe interrupted.

"It was the only remark which the man was able to make," I said. "The pig has its grunt, the bull its bellow, the cock its crow, and the plougher his boasted decency. To each his crow, grunt, boast, or bellow, and to all their ignorance. It is impossible to argue against ignorance, Moleskin. It is proof against sarcasm and satire and is blind to its own failings and the merits of clever men like you."

Joe brightened perceptibly, and he walked along with elated stride.

"You're very clever, Flynn," he said. "And you think I won?"

"You certainly did. The last shot thrown at you struck the man who threw it full in the face. He admitted that he suffered because of his decency."

Joe was now quite pleased with himself, and the rest of the day passed without any further adventure.

On the day following it rained and rained. We tasted the dye of our caps as the water washed it down our faces into our mouths. By noon we came to the crest of a hill and looked into a wild sweep of valley below. The valley—it was Glencoe—from its centre had a reach of miles on either side, and standing on its rim we were mere midges perched on the copestones of an amphitheatre set apart for the play of giants. Far away, amongst grey boulders that burrowed into steep inclines, we could see a pigmy cottage sending a wreath of blue spectral smoke into the air. No other sign of human life could be seen. The cottage was subdued by its surroundings, the movement of the ascending smoke was a sacrilege against the spell of the desolate places.

"It looks lonely," I said to my mate.

"As hell!" he added, taking up the words as they fell from my tongue.

We took our meal of bread and water on the ledge and saved up the crumbs for our supper. When night came we turned into a field that lay near the cottage, which we had seen from a distance earlier in the day.

"It's a god's charity to have a shut gate between us and the world," said Moleskin, as he fastened the bars of the fence. Some bullocks were resting under a hazel clump. These we chased away, and sat down on the spot which their bellies had warmed, and endeavoured to light our fire. From under grey rocks, and from the crevices in the stone dyke, we picked out light, dry twigs, and in thecourse of an hour we had a blazing flame, around which we dried our wet clothes. The clouds had cleared away and the moon came out silently from behind the shadow of the hills. The night was calm as the face of a sleeping girl.

We lay down together when we had eaten our crumbs, but for a long while I kept awake. A wind, soft as the breath of a child, ruffled the bushes beside us and died away in a long-drawn swoon. Far in the distance I could hear another, for it was the night of many winds, beating against the bald peaks that thrust their pointed spires into the mystery of the heavens. From time to time I could hear the falling earth as it was loosened from its century-long resting place and flung heavily into the womb of some fathomless abyss. God was still busy with the work of creation!

I was close to the earth, almost part of it, and the smell of the wet sod was heavy in my nostrils. It was the breath of the world, the world that was in the eternal throes of change all around me. Nature was restless and throbbing with movement; streams were gliding forward filled with a longing for unknown waters; winds were moving to and fro with the indecision of homeless wayfarers; leaves were dropping from the brown branches, falling down the curves of the wind silently and slowly to the great earth that whispered out the secret of everlasting change. The hazel clump twined its trellises of branches overhead, leaving spaces at random for the eternal glory of the stars to filter through and rest on our faces. Joe, bearded and wrinkled, slept and dreamt perhaps of some night's heavy drinking and desperate fighting, or maybe his dreams were of some weary shift which had been laboured out in the lonely places of the world.

Coming across the line of hills could be heard the gathering of the sea, and the chant of the deep waters that were for ever voicing their secrets to the throbbing shores.

The fire burned down but I could not go to sleep. I looked in the dying embers, and saw pictures in the flames and the redness; pictures of men and women, and strange pictures of forlorn hopes and blasted expectations. I saw weary kinless outcasts wandering over deserted roads, shunned and accursed of all their kind. Also I saw women, old women, who dragged out a sordid existence, labouring like beasts of burden from the cradle to the grave. Also pictures of young women with the blood of early life in them, and the fulness of maiden promise in them, walking one by one in the streets of the midnight city—young women, fair and beautiful, who knew of an easier means of livelihood than that which is offered by learning the uses of sewing-needle or loom-spindle in fetid garret or steam-driven mill. In the flames and the redness I saw pictures of men and women who suffered; for in that, and that only, there is very little change through all the ages. Thinking thus I fell asleep.

When I awoke, all the glory of the naked world was aflame with the early sun. The red mud of our moleskins blended in harmony with the tints of the great dawn. The bullocks were busy with their breakfasts and bore us no ill-will for the wrong which we had done them the night before. Two snails had crawled over Joe's coat, leaving a trail of slimy silver behind them, and a couple of beetles had found a resting-place in the seams of his velvet waistcoat. He rubbed his eyes when I called to him and sat up.

The snails curled up in mute protest on the ground, and the beetles hurried off and lost themselves amid the blades of grass. Joe made no effort to kill the insects. He lifted the snails off his coat and laid them down easily on the grass. "Run, you little devils!" he said with a laugh, as he looked at the scurrying beetles. "You haven't got hold of me yet, mind."

I never saw Joe kill an insect. He did not like to do so,he often told me. "If we think evil of insects, what will they think of us?" he said to me once. As for myself, I have never killed an insect knowingly in all my life. My house for so long has been the wide world, that I can afford to look leniently on all other inmates, animal or human. Four walls coffin the human sympathies.

When I rose to my feet I felt stiff and sore, and there was nothing to eat for breakfast. My mate alluded to this when he said bitterly: "I wish to God that I was a bullock!"

A crow was perched on a bush some distance away, its head a little to one side, and it kept eyeing us with a look of half quizzical contempt. When Joe saw it he jumped to his feet.

"A hooded crow!" he exclaimed.

"I think that it is as well to start off," I said. "We must try and pick up something for breakfast."

My mate was still gazing at the tree, and he took no heed to my remark. "A hooded crow!" he repeated, and lifting a stone flung it at the bird.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Them birds, they eat dead men," Moleskin answered, as the crow flew away. "There was Muck Devaney—Red Muck we called him—and he worked at the Toward waterworks three winters ago. Red Muck had a temper like an Orangeman, and so had the ganger. The two of them had a row about some contract job, and Devaney lifted his lyin' time and jacked the graft altogether. There was a heavy snow on the ground when he left our shack in the evenin', and no sooner were his heels out of sight than a blizzard came on. You know Toward Mountain, Flynn? Yes. Well, it is seven long miles from the top of the hill to the nearest town. Devaney never finished his journey. We found him when the thaw came on, and he was lyin' stiff as a bone in a heap of snow. And them hooded crows!There was dozens of them pickin' the flesh from his naked shoulder-blades. They had eat the very guts clean out of Red Muck, so we had to bury him as naked as a newborn baby. By God! Flynn, they're one of the things that I am afraid of in this world, them same hooded crows. Just think of it! maybe that one that I just threw the stone at was one of them as gobbled up the flesh of Muck Devaney."

FOOTNOTES:[9]A sleep on an empty stomach in the full sun.[10]One who steals to satisfy his hunger.

[9]A sleep on an empty stomach in the full sun.

[10]One who steals to satisfy his hunger.

Though up may be up and down be down,Time will make everything even,And the man who starves at Greenock townWill fatten at Kinlochleven;So what does it matter if time be fleet,And life sends no one to love us?We've the dust of the roadway under our feetAnd a smother of stars above us.—A Wee Song.

Though up may be up and down be down,Time will make everything even,And the man who starves at Greenock townWill fatten at Kinlochleven;

Though up may be up and down be down,

Time will make everything even,

And the man who starves at Greenock town

Will fatten at Kinlochleven;

So what does it matter if time be fleet,And life sends no one to love us?We've the dust of the roadway under our feetAnd a smother of stars above us.

So what does it matter if time be fleet,

And life sends no one to love us?

We've the dust of the roadway under our feet

And a smother of stars above us.

—A Wee Song.

I think that the two verses given above were the best verses of a song which I wrote on a bit of tea-paper and read to Moleskin on the last day of our journey to Kinlochleven. Anyhow, they are the only two which I remember. Since I had read part of the poem "Evelyn Hope," I was possessed of a leaning towards lilting rhymes, and now and again I would sit down and scribble a few lines of a song on a piece of paper. Times were when I had a burning desire to read my effusions to Moleskin, but always I desisted, thinking that he would perhaps laugh at me, or call me fool. Perhaps I would sink in my mate's estimation. I began to like Joe more and more, and daily it became apparent that he had a genuine liking for me.

We were now six days on our journey. Charity was cold, while belly-thefts were few and far between. We were hungry, and the weather being very hot at high noon, Moleskin lay down and had his dog-sleep. I wrote a few other verses in addition to those which herald this chapter,and read them to my mate when he awoke. When I had finished I asked Joe how he liked my poem.

"It's a great song," answered Moleskin. "You're nearly as good a poet as Two-shift Mullholland."

"Two-shift Mullholland?" I repeated. "I've never heard of him. Do you know anything written by him?"

"Of course I do. Have you never heard of 'The Shootin' of the Crow'?"

"Never," I replied.

"You're more ignorant than I thought," said Joe, and without any further explanation he started and sang the following song.

"THE SHOOTIN' OF THE CROW.

"Come all you true-born navvies, attend unto my lay!While walkin' down through Glasgow town, 'twas just the other day,I met with Hell-fire Gahey, and he says to me: 'Hallo!Maloney has got seven days for shootin' of the crow;With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy."'It happened near beside the docks in Moran's pub, I'm toldMaloney had been on the booze, Maloney had a cold,Maloney had no beer to drink, Maloney had no tin,Maloney could not pay his way and so they ran him in,With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'"The judge he saw Maloney and he says, 'You're up again!To sentence you to seven days it gives me greatest pain,My sorrow at your woeful plight I try for to control;And may the Lord, Maloney, have mercy on your soul,And your fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'"Oh! labour in the prison yard, 'tis very hard to bear,And many a honest navvy man may sometimes enter there;So here's to brave Maloney, and may he never goAgain to work in prison for the shootin' of the crow,With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy."

"Come all you true-born navvies, attend unto my lay!

While walkin' down through Glasgow town, 'twas just the other day,

I met with Hell-fire Gahey, and he says to me: 'Hallo!

Maloney has got seven days for shootin' of the crow;

With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.

"'It happened near beside the docks in Moran's pub, I'm toldMaloney had been on the booze, Maloney had a cold,Maloney had no beer to drink, Maloney had no tin,Maloney could not pay his way and so they ran him in,With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'

"'It happened near beside the docks in Moran's pub, I'm told

Maloney had been on the booze, Maloney had a cold,

Maloney had no beer to drink, Maloney had no tin,

Maloney could not pay his way and so they ran him in,

With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'

"The judge he saw Maloney and he says, 'You're up again!To sentence you to seven days it gives me greatest pain,My sorrow at your woeful plight I try for to control;And may the Lord, Maloney, have mercy on your soul,And your fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'

"The judge he saw Maloney and he says, 'You're up again!

To sentence you to seven days it gives me greatest pain,

My sorrow at your woeful plight I try for to control;

And may the Lord, Maloney, have mercy on your soul,

And your fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy.'

"Oh! labour in the prison yard, 'tis very hard to bear,And many a honest navvy man may sometimes enter there;So here's to brave Maloney, and may he never goAgain to work in prison for the shootin' of the crow,With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy."

"Oh! labour in the prison yard, 'tis very hard to bear,

And many a honest navvy man may sometimes enter there;

So here's to brave Maloney, and may he never go

Again to work in prison for the shootin' of the crow,

With his fol the diddle, fol the diddle daddy."

The reader of this story can well judge my utter literary simplicity at the time when I tell him that I was angry with Joe for the criticism he passed upon my poem. While blind to the defects of my own verses I was wide awaketo those of Mullholland, and I waited, angrily eager, until Joe finished the song.

"It's rotten!" I exclaimed. "You surely do not think that it is better than mine. What does 'fol the diddle' mean? A judge would not say that to a prisoner. Neither would he say, 'May the Lord have mercy on your soul,' unless he was going to pass the sentence of death on the man."

"What you say is quite right," replied Joe. "But a song to be any good at all must have a lilt at the tail of it; and as to the judge sayin', 'May the Lord have mercy on your soul,' maybe he didn't say it, but if you have 'control' at the end of one line, what must you have at the end of the next one, cully? 'May the Lord have mercy on your soul' may be wrong. I'll not misdoubt that. But doesn't it fit in nicely?"

Moleskin gave me a square look of triumph, and went on with his harangue.

"Barrin' these two things, the song is a true one. Maloney did get seven days' hard for shootin' the crow, and I mind it myself. On the night of his release I saw him in Moran's model by the wharf, and it was in that same model that Mullholland sat down and wrote the song that I have sung to you. It's a true song, so help me God! but yours!—How doyouknow that we'll fatten at Kinlochleven? More apt to go empty-gutted there, if you believe me! Then you say 'up is up, and down is down.' Who says that they are not? No one will give the lie to that, and what's the good of sayin' a thing that everyone knows about? You've not even a lilt at the tail of your screed, so it's not a song, nor half a song; it's not even a decent 'Come-all-you.' Honest to God, you're a fool, Flynn! Wait till you hear Broken-Snout Clancy sing 'The Bold Navvy Man!' That'll be the song that will make your heart warm. But your song was no good at all,Flynn. If it had only a lilt to it itself, it might be middlin'."

I recited the verse about Evelyn Hope, and when I finished, Joe asked me what it was about. I confessed that I did not exactly know, and for an hour afterwards we walked together in silence.

Late in the evening we came to the King's Arms, a lonely public-house half-way between the Bridge of Orchy and Kinlochleven. We hung around the building until night fell, for Joe became interested in an outhouse where hens were roosting. By an estimation of the stars it was nearly midnight when both of us took off our boots, and approached the henhouse. The door was locked, but my mate inserted a pointed steel bar, which he always carried in his pocket, in the keyhole, and after he had worked for half a minute the door swung open and he crept in.

"Leave all to me," he said in a whisper.

The hens were restless, and made little hiccoughy noises in their throats, noises that were not nice to listen to. I stood in the centre of the building while Joe groped cautiously around. After a little while he passed me and I could see his big gaunt form in the doorway.

"Come away," he whispered.

About twenty yards from the inn he threw down that which he carried and we proceeded to put on our boots.

"It's a rooster," he said, pointing to the dead fowl; "a young soft one too. When our boots are on, we'll slide along for a mile or so and drum up. It's not the thing to cook your fowl on the spot where you stole it. I mind once when I lifted a young pig——"

Suddenly the young rooster fluttered to its feet and started to crow.

"Holy hell!" cried Moleskin, and jumping to his feet he flung one of his boots at the fowl. The aim was bad,and the bird zig-zagged off, crowing loudly. Both of us gave chase.

The bird was a very demon. Several times when we thought that we had laid hands on it, it doubled in its tracks like a cornered fox and eluded us. Once I tried to hit it with my foot, but the blow swung clear, and my hobnailed boot took Moleskin on the shin, causing him to swear deeply.

"Fall on it, Joe; it's the only way!" I cried softly.

"Fall be damned! You might as well try to fall on a moonbeam."

A light appeared at the window of the public-house; a sash was thrown open, and somebody shouted, "Who is there?"

"Can you get hold of it?" asked Joe, as he stood to clean the sweat from his unshaven face.

"I cannot," I answered. "It's a wonderful bird."

"Wonderful damned fraud!" said my mate bitterly. "Why didn't it die decent?"

"Who's there? I say," shouted the man at the window. I made a desperate rush after the rooster, and grabbed it by the neck.

"It will not get away this time, anyhow," I said.

"Where is my other boot, Flynn?" called out Joe.

"I do not know," I replied truthfully.

The door opened, and Moleskin's boot was not to be found. We sank into the shadow of the earth and waited, meanwhile groping around with our hands for the missing property. Across the level a man came towards us slowly and cautiously.

"We had better run for it," I said.

We rushed off like the wind, and the stranger panted in pursuit behind us. Joe with a single boot on, struck the ground heavily with one foot; the other made no sound. He struck his toe on a rock and swore; when he struck it asecond time he stopped like a shot and turned round. The pursuer came to a halt also.

"If you come another step nearer, I'll batter your head into jelly!" roared Moleskin. The man turned hurriedly, and went back. Feeling relieved we walked on for a long distance, until we came to a stream. Here I lit a fire, plucked the rooster and cooked it, while Joe dressed his toe, and cursed the fowl that caused him such a calamity. I gave one of my boots to Joe and threw the other one away. Joe was wounded, and being used in my early days to go barefooted, I always hated the imprisonment of boots. I determined to go barefooted into Kinlochleven.

"Do you hear it?" Joe suddenly cried, jumping up and grabbing my arm.

I listened, and the sound of exploding dynamite could be heard in the far distance.

"The navvies on the night-shift, blastin' rocks in Kinlochleven!" cried Joe, jumping to his feet and waving a wing of the fowl over his head. "Hurrah! There's a good time comin', though we may never live to see it. Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" I shouted, for I was glad that our travels were near at an end.

Although it was a long cry till the dawn, we kicked our fire in to the air and set out again on our journey, Joe limping, and myself barefooted. We finished our supper as we walked, and each man was silent, busy with his own thoughts.

For myself I wanted to make some money and send it home to my own people in Glenmornan. I reasoned with myself that it was unjust for my parents to expect me to work for their betterment. Finding it hard enough to earn my own livelihood, why should I irk myself about them? I was, like Moleskin, an Ishmaelite, who without raising my hand against every man, had every man's handagainst me. Men like Moleskin and myself are trodden underfoot, that others may enjoy the fruit of centuries of enlightenment. I cursed the day that first saw me, but, strangely inconsistent with this train of thought, I was eager to get on to Kinlochleven and make money to send to my own people in Glenmornan.

"Oh, God! that this was ended; that this our toil was past!Our cattle die untended; our lea-lands wither fast;Our bread is lacking leaven; our life is lacking friends,And short's our prayer to Heaven for all that Heaven sends."—FromGod's Poor.

"Oh, God! that this was ended; that this our toil was past!

Our cattle die untended; our lea-lands wither fast;

Our bread is lacking leaven; our life is lacking friends,

And short's our prayer to Heaven for all that Heaven sends."

—FromGod's Poor.

The cold tang of the dawn was already in the air and the smell of the earth was keen in our nostrils, when Moleskin and I breasted the steep shoulder of a hill together, and saw the outer line of derricks standing gaunt and motionless against the bald cliffs of Kinlochleven. From the crest of the rise we could see the lilac gray vesture of the twilight unfold itself from off the naked peaks that stood out boldly in the ghostly air like carved gargoyles of some mammoth sculpture. A sense of strange remoteness troubled the mind, and in the half-light the far distances seemed vague and unearthly, and we felt like two atoms frozen into a sea of silence amidst the splendour of complete isolation. A long way off a line of hills stood up, high as the winds, and over their storm-scarred ribs we saw or fancied we saw the milky white torrents falling. We could not hear the sound of falling waters; the white frothy torrents were the ghosts of streams.

The mood or spell was one of a moment. A derrick near at hand clawed out with a lean arm, and lifted a bucket of red muck into the air, then turned noisily on its pivot, and was relieved of its burden. The sun burst out suddenlylike an opening rose, and the garments of the day were thrown across the world. One rude cabin sent up a gray spiral of smoke into the air, then another and another. We sat on a rock, lit our pipes, and gazed on the Mecca of our hopes.

A sleepy hollow lay below; and within it a muddle of shacks, roofed with tarred canvas, and built of driven piles, were huddled together in bewildering confusion. These were surrounded by puddles, heaps of disused wood, tins, bottles, and all manner of discarded rubbish. Some of the shacks had windows, most of them had none; some had doors facing north, some south; everything was in a most haphazard condition, and it looked as if the buildings had dropped out of the sky by accident, and were just allowed to remain where they had fallen. The time was now five o'clock in the morning; the night-shift men were still at work and the pounding of hammers and grating noises of drills could be heard distinctly. The day-shift men, already out of bed, were busily engaged preparing breakfast, and we could see them hopping half-naked around the cabins, carrying pans and smoking tins in their hands, and roaring at one another as if all were in a bad temper.

"I'm goin' to nose around and look for a pair of understandin's," said Joe, as he rose to his feet and sauntered away. "You wait here until I come back."

In fifteen minutes' time he returned, carrying a pair of well-worn boots, which he gave to me. I put them on, and then together we went towards the nearest cabin.

Although it was high mid-summer the slush around the dwelling rose over our boots, and dropped between the leather and our stockings. We entered the building, which was a large roomy single compartment that served the purpose of bedroom, eating-room, dressing-room, and gambling saloon. Some of the inmates had sat up all night playing banker, and they were still squatting arounda rough plank where silver and copper coins clanked noisily in the intervals between the game. The room, forty feet square, and ten foot high, contained fifty bed-places, which were ranged around the walls, and which rose one over the other in three tiers reaching from the ground to the ceiling. A spring oozed through the earthen floor, which was nothing but a puddle of sticky clay and water.

A dozen or more frying-pans, crammed with musty, sizzling slices of bacon, were jumbled together on the red hot-plate in the centre of the room, and here and there amid the pile of pans, little black sooty cans of brewing tea bubbled merrily. The odour of the rank tea was even stronger than that of the roasting meat.

The men were very ragged, and each of them was covered with a fine coating of good healthy clay. The muck was caked brown on the bare arms, and a man, by contracting his muscles firmly, could break the dirt clear off his skin in hard, dry scales. No person of all those on whom I looked had shaved for many months, and the hair stood out strongly from their cheeks and jowls. I myself was the only hairless faced individual there. I had not begun to shave then, and even now I only shave once a fortnight. A few of the men were still in bed, and many were just turning out of their bunks. On rising each man stood stark naked on the floor, prior to dressing for the day. None were ashamed of their nakedness: the false modesty of civilisation is unknown to the outside places. To most people the sight of the naked human body is repulsive, and they think that for gracefulness of form and symmetry of outline man's body is much inferior to that of the animals of the field. I suppose all people, women especially, are conscious of this, for nothing else can explain the desire to improve nature's handiwork which is inherent in all human beings.

Joe and I approached the gamblers and surveyed the game, looking over the shoulders of one of the players.

"Much luck?" inquired my mate.

"Not much," answered the man beside him, looking up wearily, although in his eyes the passion of the game still burned brightly.

"At it all night?"

"All night," replied the player, wearily picking up the cards which had been dealt out and throwing them away with an air of disgust.

"I'm broke," he cried, and rising from his seat on the ground, he began to prepare his meal. The other gamblers played on, and took no notice of their friend's withdrawal.

"It's nearly time that you gamblers stopped," someone shouted from amidst the steam of the frying meat.

"Hold your damned tongue," roared one player, who held the bank and who was overtaking the losses of the night.

"Will someone cook my grub?" asked another.

"Play up and never mind your mealy grub, you gutsy whelp!" snarled a third, who was losing heavily and who had forgotten everything but the outcome of the game. Thus they played until the whistle sounded, calling all out to work; and then each man snatched up a crust of bread, or a couple of slices of cold ham, and went out to work in the barrow-squads or muck-gangs where thousands laboured day by day.

Meanwhile my mate and I had not been idle. I asked several questions about the work while Joe looked for food as if nothing else in the world mattered. Having urged a young fellow to share his breakfast with me, he then nosed about on his own behalf, and a few minutes later when I glanced around me I saw my pal sitting on the corner of a ground bunk, munching a chunk of stale bread and gulping down mighty mouthfuls of black tea from thesooty can in which it had been brewed. On seeing me watching him he lowered his left eyelid slightly, and went solemnly on with his repast.

"We'll go out and chase up a job now," said Moleskin, emptying his can of its contents with a final sough. "It will be easy to get a start. Red Billy Davis, old dog that he is, wants three hammermen, and we'll go to him and get snared while it is yet early in the day."

"But how do you know that there are three men wanted?" I asked. "I heard nothing about it, although I asked several persons if there was any chance of a job."

"You've a lot to learn, cully," answered Moleskin. "The open ear is better than the open mouth. I was listenin' while you were lookin' around, and by the talk of the men I found out a thing or two. Come along."

We went out, full of belly and full of hope, and sought for Red Billy Davis and his squad of hammermen. I had great faith in Moleskin, and now being fully conscious of his superior knowledge I was ready to follow him anywhere. After a long search, we encountered a man who sat on the idle arm of a crane, whittling shavings off a splinter of wood with his clasp-knife. The man was heavily bearded and extremely dirty. When he saw us approaching he rose and looked at my mate.

"Moleskin, by God!" he exclaimed, closing the knife and putting it in his pocket. "Are you lookin' for a job?"

"Can you snare an old hare this mornin'?" asked Joe.

"H'm!" said the man.

"Pay?" asked Joe laconically.

"A tanner an hour, overtime seven and a half," said the man with the whiskers.

"The hammer?" asked Joe.

"Hammer and jumper," answered the man. "You can take off your coat now."

"This mate of mine is lookin' for work, too," said Joe, pointing at me.

"He's light of shoulder and lean as a rake," replied the bearded man, with undisguised contempt in his voice.

My temper was up in an instant. I took a step forward with the intention of pulling the old red-haired buck off his seat, when my mate put in a word on my behalf.

"He knocked out Carroty Dan in Burn's model," said Joe, by way of recommendation, and my anger gave way to pride there and then.

"If that is so he can take off his coat too," said the old fellow, pulling out his clasp-knife and restarting on the rod. "Hammers and jumpers are down in the cuttin', the dynamite is in the cabin at the far end on the right. Slide."

"Come back, lean-shanks," he called to me as I turned to go. "What is your name?" he asked, when I turned round.

"Dermod Flynn," I replied.

"You have to pay me four shillin's when you lift your first pay," said Davis.

"That be damned!" interrupted Moleskin.

"Four shillin's," repeated Red Billy, laying down his clasp-knife and taking out a note-book and making an entry. "That's the price I charge for a pair of boots like them."

Moleskin looked at my boots, which it appears he had stolen from Red Billy in the morning. Then he edged nearer to the ganger.

"Put the cost against me," he said. "I'll give you two and a tanner for the understandin's."

"Two and a tanner it is," said Red Billy, and shut the book.

"You must let me pay half," I said to Joe later.

"Not at all," he replied. "I have the best of the bargain."

He put his hand in his pocket and drew out something. It was the clasp-knife that Red Billy placed on the ground when making the entry in his note-book.

"He could fight like a red, roaring bull."—Moleskin Joe.

"He could fight like a red, roaring bull."

—Moleskin Joe.

Sixpence an hour meant thirty shillings a week, and a man was allowed to work overtime until he fell at his shift. For Sunday work ninepence an hour was given, so the navvies told me, and now I looked forward to the time when I would have money enough and to spare. In anticipation I computed my weekly earnings as amounting to two pounds ten, and I dreamt of a day in the near future when I could again go south, find Norah Ryan, and take her home as my wife to Glenmornan. I never thought of making my home in a strange land. Oh! what dreams came to me that morning as I took my place among the forty ragged members of Red Billy's gang! Life opened freshly; my morbid fancies were dispelled, and I blessed the day that saw my birth. I looked forward to the future and said that it was time for me to begin saving money. When a man is in misery he recoils from the thoughts of the future, but when he is happy he looks forward in eager delight to the time to come.

The principal labour of Red Billy's gang was rock-blasting. This work is very dangerous and requires skilful handling of the hammer. In the art of the hammer I was quite an adept, for did I not work under Horse Roche on the —— Railway before setting out forKinlochleven? Still, for all that, I have known men who could not use a hammer rightly if they worked with one until the crack of doom.

I was new to the work of the jumper gang, but I soon learned how operations were performed. One man—the "holder"—sat on the rock which was to be bored, his legs straight out in front of him and well apart. Between his knees he held the tempered steel drill with its sharp nose thrust into the rock. The drill or "jumper" is about five feet long, and the blunt upper end is rounded to receive the full force of the descending hammer. Five men worked each drill, one holding it to the rock while the other four struck it with their hammers in rotation. The work requires nerve and skill, for the smallest error in a striker's judgment would be fatal to the holder. The hammer is swung clear from the hip and travels eighteen feet or more before it comes in contact with the inch-square upper end of the jumper. The whole course of the blow is calculated instinctively before the hammer rises to the swing. This work is classed as unskilled labour.

When it is considered that men often work the whole ten-hour shift with the eternal hammer in their hands it is really a wonder that more accidents do not take place, especially since the labour is often performed after a night's heavy drinking or gambling. A holder is seldom wounded; when he is struck he dies. Only once have I seen a man thus get killed. The descending hammer flew clear of the jumper and caught the poor fellow over the temple, knocking him stiff dead.

Red Billy's gang was divided into squads, each consisting of five persons. We completed a squad not filled up before our arrival, and proceeded to work with our two hammers. Stripped to our trousers and shirt, and puffing happily at our pipes, we were soon into the lie of the job, and swung our heavy hammers over our headsto the virile music of meeting steel. Most of the men knew Joe. He had worked somewhere and at some time with most on the place, and all had a warm word of welcome for Moleskin. "By God, it's Moleskin! Have you a chew of 'baccy to spare?" was the usual form of greeting. There was no handshake. It is unknown among the navvies, just as kissing is unknown in Glenmornan. For a few hours nobody took any notice of me, but at last my mate introduced me to several of those who had gathered around, when we took advantage of Red Billy's absence to fill our pipes and set them alight.

"Do you know that kid there, that mate of mine?" he asked, pointing at me with his pipe-shank. I felt confused, for every eye was fixed on me, and lifting my hammer I turned to my work, trying thus to hide my self-consciousness.

"A blackleg without the spunk of a sparrow!" said one man, a tough-looking fellow with the thumb of one hand missing, who, not satisfied with taking off his coat to work, had taken off his shirt as well. "What the hell are you workin' for when the ganger is out of sight?"

I felt nettled and dropped my hammer.

"I did not know that it was wrong to work when the ganger was out of sight," I said to the man who had spoken. "But if you want to shove it on to me you are in the wrong shop!"

"That's the way to speak, Flynn," said Moleskin approvingly. Then he turned to the rest of the men.

"That kid, that mate of mine, rose stripped naked from his bed and thrashed Carroty Dan in Burn's model lodging-house," he said. "Now it takes a good man to thrash Carroty."

"Iknocked Carroty out," said the man who accused me of working when the ganger was out of sight, and he looked covertly in my direction.

"There's a chance for you, Flynn!" cried Moleskin, in a delighted voice. "You'll never get the like of it again. Just pitch into Hell-fire Gahey and show him how you handle your pair of fives."

Gahey looked at me openly and eagerly, evincing all tokens of pleasure and willingness to come to fistic conclusions with me there and then. As for myself, I felt in just the right mood for a bit of a tussle, but at that moment Red Billy appeared from behind the crane handle and shouted across angrily:

"Come along, you God-damned, forsaken, lousy, beggarly, forespent wastrels, and get some work done!" he cried.

"Can a man not get time to light his pipe?" remonstrated Moleskin.

"Time in hell!" shouted Billy. "You're not paid for strikin' matches here."

We started work again; the fight was off for the moment, and I felt sorry. It is disappointing to rise to a pitch of excitement over nothing; and a fight keeps a man alert and alive.

Having bored the rock through to the depth of four or five feet, we placed dynamite in the hole, attached a fuse, lit it, and hurried off to a place of safety until the rock was blown to atoms. Then we returned to our labour at the jumper and hammer.

Dinner-time came around; the men shared their grub with my mate and me, Hell-fire Gahey giving me a considerable share of his food. Red Billy, who took his grub along with us, cut his bread into thin slices with a dirty tobacco-stained knife, and remarked that he always liked tobacco juice for kitchen. Red Billy chewed the cud after eating, a most curious, but, as I have learned since, not an unprecedented thing. He was very proud of this peculiarity, and said that the gift—he called it a gift—was the outcome of a desire when young and hungry to chew over again the food which he had already eaten.

No one spoke of my proposed fight with Gahey, and I wondered at this silence. I asked Moleskin if Hell-fire was afraid of me.

"Not at all," said Joe. "But he won't put his dinner-hour to loss by thrashin' a light rung of a cully like you. That's the kind of him."

I laughed as if enjoying Joe's remark, but in my mind I resolved to go for Gahey as soon as I got the chance, and hammer him, if able, until he shrieked for mercy. It was most annoying to know that a man would not put his time to loss in fighting me.

We finished work at six o'clock in the evening, and Moleskin and I obtained two shillings of sub.[11]apiece. Then we set off for the store, a large rambling building in which all kinds of provisions were stored, and bought food. Having procured one loaf, one pound of steak, one can of condensed milk and a pennyworth of tea and sugar, we went to our future quarters in Red Billy's shack.

Our ganger built a large shack at Kinlochleven when work was started there, and furnished it with a hot-plate, beds, bedding, and a door. He forgot all about windows, or at least considered them unnecessary for the dwelling-place of navvy men. Once a learned man objected to the lack of fresh air in Billy's shack. "If you go outside the door you'll get plenty of air, and if you stay out it will be fresher here," was Billy's answer. To do Billy justice, it is necessary to say that he slept in the shack himself. Three shillings a week secured the part use of a bedplace for each man, and the hot-plate was used in common by the inmates of the shack. At the end of the week the three shillings were deducted from the men's pay. Moleskin and I had no difficulty in securing a bed, which wehad to share with Gahey, my rival. Usually three men lay in each bunk, and sometimes it happened that four unwashed dirty humans were huddled together under the one evil-smelling, flea-covered blanket.

Red Billy's shack was built of tarred wooden piles, shoved endwise into the earth, and held together by iron cross-bars and wooden couplings. Standing some distance apart from the others, it was neither better nor worse than any of the rest. I mean that it could be no worse; and there was not a better shack in all the place. As it happened to stand on a mountain spring a few planks were thrown across the floor to prevent the water from rising over the shoe-mouths of the inmates. In warm weather the water did not come over the flooring; in the rainy season the flooring was always under the water. A man once said that the Highlands were the rain-trough of the whole world.

The beds were arranged one over another in three rows which ran round the entire hut, which was twelve feet high and about thirty feet square. The sanitary authorities took good care to see that every cow in the byre at Braxey farm had so many cubic feet of breathing space, but there was no one to bother about the navvies' byres in Kinlochleven; it was not worth anybody's while to bother about our manner of living.

Moleskin and I had no frying-pan, but Gahey offered us the use of his, until such time as we raised the price of one. We accepted the offer and forthwith proceeded to cook a good square supper. It had barely taken us five minutes to secure our provisions, but by the time we started operations on the hot-plate the gamblers were busy at work, playing banker on a discarded box in the centre of the building. Gahey, who was one of the players, seemed to have forgotten all about the projected fight between himself and me.

"Is Gahey not going to fight?" I asked Moleskin in a whisper.

"My God! don't you see that he's playin' banker?" said Joe, and I had to be content with that answer, which was also an explanation of the man's lack of remembrance. Fighting must be awfully common and boring to the man when he forgets one so easily, I thought. To me a fight was something which I looked forward to for days, and which I thought of for weeks afterwards. Now I felt a trifle afraid of Gahey. I was of little account in his eyes, and I concluded, for I jump quickly to conclusions, that I would not make much of a show if I stood up against such a man, a man who looked upon a fight as something hardly worthy of notice. I decided to let the matter drop and trouble about it no further. I think that if Gahey had asked me to fight at that moment I should have refused. The truth was that I became frightened of the man.

"Can I have a hand while I'm cookin' my grub?" Joe asked the dealer, a man of many oaths whose name was Maloney, a personage already enshrined in the song written by Mullholland on theShootin' of the Crow.

"The more the merrier!" was the answer, given in a tone of hearty assent. On hearing these words Moleskin left the pan under my care, put down a coin on the table, and with one eye on the steak, and another on the game, he waited for the turn-up of the banker's card. During the whole meal my mate devoted the intervals between bites to the placing of money on the card table. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, and when the game concluded with a free fight my mate had lost every penny of his sub., and thirteen pence which he had borrowed from me. It was hard to determine how the quarrel started, but at the commencement nearly every one of the players was involved in the fight, which gradually resolved itself intoan affair between two of the gamblers, Blasting Mick and Ben the Moocher.

Red Billy Davis came in at that moment, and between two planks, wallowing in the filth, he found the combatants tearing at one another for all they were worth.

"Go out and fight, and be damned to yous!" roared Red Billy, catching the two men as they scrambled to their feet. "You want to break ev'rything in the place, you do! Curses be on you! go out into the world and fight!" he cried, taking them by their necks and shoving them through the door.

Nothing daunted, however, both continued the quarrel outside in the darkness. No one evinced any desire to go out and see the result of the fight, but I was on the tip-toe of suspense waiting for the finish of the encounter. I could hear the combatants panting and slipping outside, but thinking that the inmates of the shack would consider me a greenhorn if I went to look at the fight I remained inside. I resolved to follow Moleskin's guidance for at least a little while longer; I lacked the confidence to work on my own initiative.

"Clean broke!" said Moleskin, alluding to his own predicament, as he sat down by the fire, and asked the man next to him for a chew of tobacco. "Money is made round to go round, anyway," he went on; "and there is some as say that it is made flat to build upon, but that's damned rot. Doesn't ev'ryone here agree with that?"

"Ev'ryone," was the hearty response.

"Why the devil do all of you agree?" Joe looked savagely exasperated. "Has no man here an opinion of his own? You, Tom Slavin, used to save your pay when you did graft at Toward Waterworks, and what didyoudo with your money?"

Tom Slavin was a youngish fellow, and Joe's enquiry caused him to look redder than the hot-plate.

"He bought penny ribbons and brass bracelets for Ganger Farley's daughter," put in Red Billy, who had quickly regained his good humour; "but in the end the jade went and married a carpenter from Glasgow."

Red Billy chuckled in his beard. He was twice a widower, grass and clay, and he was a very cynical old man. I did not take much heed to the conversation; I was listening to the scuffle outside.

"What did I always say about women!" said Moleskin, launching into the subject of the fair sex. "Once get into the hands of a woman and she'll drive you to hell and leave you with the devil when she gets you there. How many fools can a woman put through her hands? Eh! How much water can run through a sieve? No matter how many lovers a woman has, she has always room for one more. It's a well-filled barn that doesn't give room for the threshin' of one extra sheaf. Comin' back to that sliver of a Slavin's wenchin', who is the worst off now, the carpenter or Tom? I'll go bail that one is jealous of the other; that one's damned because he did and the other's damned because he didn't."

"There's a sort of woman, Gourock Ellen they call her," interrupted Red Billy with a chuckle, "and she nearly led you to hell in Glasgow three years ago, Mister Moleskin."

"And what about the old heifer you made love to in Clydebank, Moleskin?" asked James Clancy, a man with a broken nose and great fame as a singer, who had not spoken before.

"Oh! that Glasgow woman," said Moleskin, taking no heed of the second question. "I didn't think very much of her."

"What was wrong with her?" asked Billy.

"She was a woman; isn't that enough?"

"It was a different story on the night when you andGinger Simpson fought about her in the Saltmarket," cut in some individual who was sitting in the bed sewing patches on his trousers.

"I've fought my man and knocked him out many a time, when there wasn't a wench within ten miles of me," cried Moleskin. "Doesn't ev'ryone here believe that?"

"But that woman in Clydebank!" persisted Clancy.

"Have you seen Ginger Simpson of late?" said Moleskin, making an effort to change the subject, for he observed that he was cornered. It was evident that some of the inmates of the shack had learned facts relating to his career, which Moleskin would have preferred to remain unknown.

"Last winter I met him in Greenock," said Sandy MacDonald, a man with a wasting disease, who lay in a corner bunk at the end of the shack. "He told me all about the fight in the Saltmarket, and that Gourock Ellen——"

"But the Clydebank woman——"

"Listen!" said Joe, interrupting Clancy's remark. "They're at it outside yet. It must be a hell of a fight between the two of them."

He referred to Blasting Mick and Ben the Moocher, who were still busily engaged in thrashing one another outside, and in the silence that followed Joe's remark I could hear distinctly the thud of many blows given and taken by the two combatants in the darkness.

"Let them fight; that's nothin' to us," said Red Billy, taking a bite from the end of his plug. "But for my own part I would like to know where Gourock Ellen is now."

Joe made no answer; he was visibly annoyed, and I saw his fists closing tightly.

"Do you mind the Clydebank woman, Moleskin?" asked Clancy, making a final effort in his enquiries. "She was fond of her pint, and had a horrid squint."

"I'll squint you, by God!" roared Moleskin, reachingout and gripping Clancy by the scruff of the neck. "If I hear you talkin' about Clydebank again, I'll thicken your ear for you, seein' that I cannot break your nose! And you, you red-bearded sprat, you!" this to Red Billy Davis; "if you mention Gourock Ellen again, I'll leave your eyes in such a state that you'll not be fit to see one of your own gang for six months to come."

Just at that moment the two fighters came in, and attracted the whole attention of the party inside by their appearance. They looked worn and dishevelled, their clothes were torn to ribbons, their cheeks were covered with clay and blood, and their hair and beards looked like mops which had been used in sweeping the bottom of a midden. One good result of the two men's timely entrance was that the rest of the party forgot their own particular grievances.

"Quite pleased with yoursels now?" asked Red Billy Davis, but the combatants did not answer. They sat down, took off their boots, scraped the clay from their wounds, and turned into bed.

"Moleskin, do you know Gourock Ellen?" I asked my mate when later I found him sitting alone in a quiet corner.

Moleskin glared at me furiously. "By this and by that, Flynn! if you talk to me about Gourock Ellen again I'll scalp you," he answered.

For a moment I felt a trifle angry, but having sense enough to see that Moleskin was sore cut with the outcome of the argument, and knowing that he was the only friend whom I had in all Kinlochleven I kept silent, stifling the words of anger that had risen to my tongue. By humouring one another's moods we have become inseparable friends.

One by one the men turned into bed. Maloney having collared all the day's sub. there was no more gambling thatnight. Joe sat for a while bare naked, getting a belly heat at the fire, as he himself expressed it, before he turned into bed.

"Where have you left your duds, Flynn?" he asked, as he rose to his feet and extinguished the naphtha lamp which hung from the roof by a piece of wire. I was already under the blankets, glad of their warmth, meagre though it was, after so many long chilly nights on the road.

"They are under my pillow," I answered.

"And your bluchers?"

"On the floor."

"Put them under your pillow too, or maybe you'll be without them in the mornin'."

Acting upon Joe's advice, I jumped out of bed, groped in the darkness, found my boots and placed them under my pillow. Presently, wedged in between the naked bodies of Moleskin Joe and Hell-fire Gahey, I endeavoured to test the strength of the latter's arms by pressing them with my fingers. The man was asleep, if snoring was to be taken as a sign, and presently I was running my hand over his body, testing the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and chest. He was covered with hair, more like a brute than a human; long, curling, matted hair, that was rough as fine wire when the hand came in contact with it. The rubber-like pliability of the man's long arms impressed me, and assured me that he would be a quick hitter when he started fighting. Added to that he had a great fame as a fighting man in Kinlochleven. He was a loud snorer too; I have never met a man who could snore like Gahey, and snoring is one of the vices which I detest. Being very tired after the long homeless tramp from Greenock, I fell asleep by-and-bye; but I did not sleep for long. The angry voice of Joe awakened me, and I heard him expostulate with Hell-fire on the unequal distribution of the blankets.

"You hell-forsaken Irish blanket-grabber, you!" Joe was roaring; "you've got all the clothes in the bed wrapped round your dirty hide."

"Ye're a hell-fire liar, and that's what ye are!" snorted Gahey. "It's yerself that has got all the beddin'."

Joe replied with an oath and a vigorous tug at the blankets. In turn my other bedmate pulled them back, and for nearly five minutes both men engaged in a mad tug-of-war. Hell-fire got the best of it in the end, for he placed his back against the wall of the shack, planted his feet in my side, and pulled as hard as he was able until he regained complete possession of the disputed clothing. Just then Moleskin's hand passed over my head with a mighty swish in the direction of Gahey. I turned rapidly round and lay face downwards on the pillow in order to avoid the blows of the two men as they fought across my naked body. And they did fight! The dull thud of fist on flesh, the grunts and pants of the men, the creaking of the joints as their arms were thrown outwards, the jerky spring of the wooden bunk-stanchions as they shook beneath the straining bodies, and the numberless blows which landed on me in the darkness makes the memory of the first night in Kinlochleven for ever green in my mind.

Rising suddenly to his feet Gahey stood over me in a crouching position with both his heels planted in the small of my back. The pain was almost unendurable, and I got angry. It was almost impossible to move, but by a supreme effort I managed to wriggle round and throw Gahey head-foremost into Moleskin's arms, whereupon the two fighters slithered out of bed, leaving the blankets to me, and continued their struggle on the floor.

Somewhere in the middle of the shack I could hear Red Billy swearing as he endeavoured to light a match on the upper surface of the hot-plate.

"My blessed blankets!" he was lamenting. "Youdamned scoundrels! you'll not leave one in the hut. Fighting in bed just the same as if you were lyin' in a pig-sty. What the devil was I thinkin' of when I took on that pig of a Moleskin Joe?"

Billy ceased thinking just then, for a wild swing of Moleskin's heavy fist missed Gahey and caught the ganger under the ear. The whiskered one dropped with a groan amid the floor-planks and lay, kicking, shouting meanwhile that Moleskin had murdered him. Someone lit a match, and my bedmates ceased fighting and seemed little the worse for their adventure. Billy's face looked ghastly, and a red streak ran from his nose into the puddle in which he lay. He had now stopped speaking and was fearfully quiet. I jumped out of bed, shaking in every limb, for I thought that the old ganger was killed.

"A tin of water thrown in his face will bring him round," I said, but feared at the same time that it would not.

"Or a bucketful," someone suggested.

"Stab a pin under the quick of his nail."

"Burn a feather under his nose."

"Give him a dig in the back."

"Or a prod in the ribs."

The match had gone out, no one could find another, and the voices of advice came from the darkness in all the corners of the room. Even old Sandy MacDonald, who could find no cure for his own complaint, the wasting disease, was offering endless advice on the means of curing Red Billy Davis.

A match was again found; the lamp was lit, and after much rough doctoring on the part of his gang, the ganger recovered and swore himself to sleep. Joe and Gahey came back together and stood by the bed.

"It's myself that has the hard knuckles, Moleskin," said Gahey. "And they're never loth to come in contact with flesh that's not belongin' to the man who owns them."

"There's a plot of ground here, and it's called the 'Ring,'" said Moleskin. "About seven o'clock the morrow evenin', I'll be out that way for a stroll. Many a man has broke a hard knuckle against my jaw, and if you just meet me in the Ring——"

"I'll take a bit of a dander round there, Joe," said Hell-fire, and filled with ineffable content both men slipped into their bed, and fell asleep. As for myself, the dawn was coming through a chink in the shack when my eyes closed in slumber.

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