Chapter I: Foreword

"I wish the Kinlochleven navvies had been thrown into the loch. They would fain turn the Highlands into a cinderheap," said the late Andrew Lang, writing to me a few months before his death.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to tell of the navvy; the life he leads, the dangers he dares, and the death he often dies. Most of my story is autobiographical. Moleskin Joe and Carroty Dan are true to life; they live now, and for all I know to the contrary may be met with on some precarious job, in some evil-smelling model lodging-house, or, as suits these gipsies of labour, on the open road. Norah Ryan's painful story shows the dangers to which an innocent girl is exposed through ignorance of the fundamental facts of existence; Gourock Ellen and Annie are types of women whom I have often met. While asking a little allowance for the pen of the novelist it must be said that nearly all the incidents of the book have come under the observation of the writer: that such incidents should take place makes the tragedy of the story.

PATRICK MACGILL.

The Garden House, Windsor.

_January, 1914._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. A NIGHT IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE 1

II. OLD CUSTOMS 8

III. A CORSICAN OUTRAGE 15

IV. THE GREAT SILENCE 18

V. THE SLAVE MARKET 25

VI. BOYNE WATER AND HOLY WATER 34

VII. A MAN OF TWELVE 41

VIII. OLD MARY SORLEY 48

IX. A GOOD TIME 56

X. THE LEADING ROAD TO STRABANE 62

XI. THE 'DERRY BOAT 67

XII. THE WOMAN WHO WAS NOT ASHAMED 74

XIII. THE MAN WITH THE DEVIL'S PRAYER BOOK 84

XIV. PADDING IT 92

XV. MOLESKIN JOE 99

XVI. MOLESKIN JOE AS MY FATHER 105

XVII. ON THE DEAD END 111

XVIII. THE DRAINER 127

XIX. A DEAD MAN'S SHOES 129

XX. BOOKS 136

XXI. A FISTIC ARGUMENT 146

XXII. THE OPEN ROAD 151

XXIII. THE COCK OF THE NORTH 168

XXIV. MECCA 175

XXV. THE MAN WHO THRASHED CARROTY DAN 182

XXVI. A GREAT FIGHT 197

XXVII. DE PROFUNDIS 213

XXVIII. A LITTLE TRAGEDY 217

XXIX. I WRITE FOR THE PAPERS 225

XXX. WINTER 230

XXXI. THE GREAT EXODUS 243

XXXII. A NEW JOB 254

XXXIII. A SWEETHEART OF MINE 263

XXXIV. UNSKILLED LABOUR OF A NEW KIND 274

XXXV. THE SEARCH 287

XXXVI. THE END OF THE STORY 298

CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END