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.
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.
[12] Good-bye; literally, "Health be with you."
I had never seen an omnibus. I did not know that it was necessary to take off my hat when entering a dwelling. I had never used a fork when eating. I had never been introduced to a lady; to me the approved form of introduction was a mystery. My boots had not been blackened for years. I wore my first collar when setting out for London. It nearly choked me. Since leaving Glenmornan I had rarely been inside an ordinary dwelling house. Most of the time I had lived under God's sky, the roof of a byre, and the tarred wooden covering of the navvies' shack at Kinlochleven. I had, it is true, seen the inside of a drawing-room and a dining-room—through the window. I lacked knowledge of most of the things which most people know and which really do not matter. I went to London a greenhorn gloriously green.
Outside Euston station I asked a man the way to Fleet Street. He inquired if I was going to walk or take an omnibus. Omnibus! I had never heard of an omnibus; he might have asked me if I intended to ride on a pterodactyl! I said that I was going to walk, and the stranger gave me several hints as to the direction which I should follow. Even if I had understood what he was saying, I am certain that I could not have remembered the directions. When he finished, he asked me for the price of his breakfast. This I understood, and gave him threepence, which pleased the man mightily.
It was funny that the first man accosted by me in London should ask for the price of a meal. The prospects of making a fortune looked poor at the moment.
I walked to Fleet Street, making inquiries from policemen on the way. This was safest, and I hadn't to pay for a meal when my questions were answered. By ten o'clock I found myself at the office of the Dawn, and there I met the editor.
The editor was a Frenchman, short of stature and breath. His figure was ridiculously rotund, and his little legs were so straight that they looked as if they were jointless. He would not have made much of a show on a ten-hour shift in the cutting of Kinlochleven, and though Fleet Street knows that he is one of the ablest editors in London I had not much respect for the man when I first saw him. He was busily engaged in looking through sheets of flimsy when I entered, and for a few minutes he did not take much notice of me. He called me Pim, asked me several questions about the navvies, my politics and writings. He looked annoyed when I said I was a socialist.
"A writer among navvies, and a navvy among writers; is that it?" asked the news-editor when I entered his office, a stuffy little place full of tobacco smoke. "You see that we have heard of you here. Going to try your hand at journalism now, are you? Feeling healthy and fit?"
He plied me with several questions relating to my past life, took no heed of my answers and, fumbling amongst a pile of papers, he drew out a type-written slip.
"I have a story for you," he said. "A fire broke out early this morning in a warehouse in Holborn. Go out and get all the facts relating to it and work the whole affair up well. If you do not know where Holborn is, make enquiries."
I met a third man, a young, clean-shaven, alert youth, in the passage outside the news-editor's door.
"Are you Flynn?" he asked, and when I answered in the affirmative he shook hands with me. "My name is Barwell," he continued. "I am a journalist like yourself. What the devil caused you to come here?"
I had no excuses to offer.
"You might have stayed where you were," said Barwell. "You'll find that a navvies' office is much better than a newspaper office. Have you had lunch?"
"No," I answered. It was now nearly one o'clock, but I had not had breakfast yet. I had never been inside a restaurant in my life, and the daintily-dressed waitresses and top-hatted feeders deterred me from entering that morning. I might have done something unbecoming and stupid, and in a strange place I am sensitive and shy.
"Come along then. We'll go out together and feed."
We entered a restaurant in the Strand, and my friend ordered lunch for two. During the course of the meal I suffered intense mental agony. The fork was a problem, the serviette a mystery, and I felt certain that everybody in the place was looking at me.
"The news-editor has asked me to write an account of a fire in Holborn," I said to Barwell when we had eaten, "Do you know where Holborn is?"
"The whole account of the fire is given in the evening papers," said Barwell. "Therefore you do not require to go near the place."
"You mean——"
"Exactly what you are going to say," said the young man looking at the copy of the evening paper which he had bought at the door when entering. "You can write your story now and get the facts from this. Have you a pencil and notebook?"
"No."
"If you are going to take up journalism they are the initial and principal requirements. Beyond a little tact and plenty of cheek you require nothing else. A conscience and a love of truth are great drawbacks. Are you ready?"
He handed me a pencil and notebook.
"Now begin. The opening sentence must be crisp and startling; and never end your sentences with prepositions."
"But I know nothing about the fire," I expostulated.
"Oh! I've forgotten." He picked up the paper which he had absent-mindedly kicked under the table. "Now you are all right. Get your facts from this rag, but write the story in your own way. You'll find this good training if ever you've got to weave out lies of your own. Meanwhile I've three or four novels to review."
As he spoke he opened a parcel which he had brought along with him, and took out several books which he regarded critically for a moment.
"Are they worth reading?" I asked.
"I do not know."
"You do not know and you're going to review them!"
"It's bad policy to read a book before you review it," he answered. "It is apt to give rise to prejudice. This volume," taking up one in his hand as he spoke, "The Woman who Fell, is written by a personal friend of the editor. I must review it favourably. This one, In the Teeth of the Tempest, is written by a strong supporter of the Liberal Government. The Dawn is tory, the author is liberal, therefore his work must be slated. See?"
"But your own opinion——"
"What the devil do I need with an opinion of my own?"
Thereupon Barwell reviewed the books which he had not read and I muddled through an account of the fire which I had not seen, and when we had finished we took our way into the street again.
Although it was barely past three o'clock, the early December night had now fallen. Fleet Street was a blaze of light and a medley of taxi-cabs and omnibuses. Except for the down-at-heel mendicant, and the women who had more paint than modesty, everybody was in a great hurry.
"What do you think of it all, Flynn?" asked Barwell suddenly. "Isn't it a great change from your past life? London! there's no place like it in all the world! Light loves and light ladies, passion without soul, enjoyment without stint, and sin without scandal or compunction."
"Only those with some idea of virtue can sin with compunction," I said. This thought came to me suddenly, and Barwell looked surprised at my words.
"By Jove! that's so," he answered, scribbling my remark down on his notebook. "Well, what is your opinion of London, all that you have seen of it?"
"What the devil do I want with an opinion?" I asked, quoting his own words.
"Quite so; but we are now speaking in a confidential, not in a journalistic sense. Do you not think that it is a heavenly privilege to be allowed to write lies for a kingdom of fools within ninety-eight million miles of the sun? You'll fall in love with London directly, old man, for it is the centre of the universe. The world radiates outwards from Charing Cross and revolves around the Nelson column. London is the world, journalism is the midden of creation."
"Do you really think that men are acting in a straightforward manner by writing unfair and untruthful articles for the public?" I asked.
"The public is a crowd of asses and you must interest it. You are paid to interest it with plausible lies or unsavoury truths. An unsavoury truth is always palatable to those whom it does not harm. Our readers gloat over scandal, revel in scandal, and pay us for writing it. Learn what the public requires and give it that. Think one thing in the morning and another at night; preach what is suitable to the mob and study the principle of the paper for which you write. That's how you have to do it, Flynn. A paper's principle is a very subtle thing, and it must be studied. Every measure passed in Parliament affects it, it oscillates to the breezes of public opinion and it is very intangible. The principle of a daily paper is elusive, old man, damned elusive. Come in and have a whisky and soda."
"Not elusive but changeable, I suppose," I said, alluding to his penultimate remark as we stood at the bar of the wine shop. "The principles of the Dawn are rather consistent, are they not?"
"The principles oscillate, old man. Your health, and may you live until newspapers are trustworthy! Consistent, eh? Some day you'll learn of the inconsistencies of Fleet Street, Flynn. Here the Jew is an advocate of Christianity, the American of Protection, the poet a compiler of statistics, the penny-a-liner a defender of the idle rich, and the reporter with anarchistic ideas a defender of social law and order. Here charlatans, false as they are clever, play games in which the pawns are religion and atheism, and make, as suits their purpose, material advantages of the former or a religion of the latter. Fleet Street is the home of chicanery, of fraud, of versatile vices and unnumbered sins. It is an outcome of the civilisation which it rules, a framer of the laws which it afterwards destroys or protects at caprice; without conscience or soul it dominates the world. Only in its falseness is it consistent. Truth is further removed from its jostling rookeries than the first painted savage who stoned the wild boar in the sterile wastes of Ludgate Circus."
Barwell's gestures were as astonishing as his eloquence. One hand clutched the lapel of his coat; in the other he held the glass of liquor which he shook violently when reaching the zenith of his harangue. The whisky splashed and sparkled and kept spurting over the rim of the glass until most of the contents were emptied on the floor. He hardly drank a quarter of the liquor. We went out, and once in the street he continued his vehement utterances.
"Take the Dawn for example," he said. "The editor is a Frenchman, the leader-writer a German, the American special correspondent an Irishman who came to England on a cattle boat and who has never ventured on the sea since. The Dawn advocates Tariff Reform, and most of the reporters are socialists. The leader-writer points out the danger of a German menace daily. What influences one of the Kaiser's subjects to sit down and, for the special benefit of the British nation, write a thrilling warning against the German menace? Salary or conscience, eh? The Dawn knows the opinions of Germany before Germany has formed an opinion, and gives particulars of the grave situation in the Far East before the chimerical situation has evolved from its embryological stages. Consistent, my dear fellow? It is only consistent in its inconsistencies. The reviewers seldom read the books which they review in its pages, and the quack suffers from the ills which through its columns he professes to cure. The bald man who sells a wonderful hair restorer, the cripple who can help the lame, and the anæmic pill-maker who professes ability to cure any disease, all advertise in the Dawn. A newspaper is as untruthful as an epitaph, Flynn."
"If you dislike the work so much why do you remain on the staff?" I asked.
"I do not dislike it. Being by nature a literary Philistine and vagabond journalist, I love the work. Anyhow, there is nothing else which I can do. If I happened to be placed on a square acre of earth fresh from the hands of the Creator, and given a spade and shovel to work with, what use could I make of those tools of labour? I could not earn my living with a spade and shovel. It was for the like of us that London and journalism were created."
For a while I was very much out of my place at my quarters in Bloomsbury, for it was in that locality that I obtained rooms along with Barwell. Everything in the place was a fresh experience to me; at the dinner-table I did not know the names of the dishes. The table napkins were problems which were new to me, and the frilled and collared maid-servant was a phenomena, disconcerting and unavoidable.
I who had cooked my own chops for the best part of seven years, I who had dined in moleskin and rags for such a long while, felt the handicap of dining inside four walls, hemmed with restraint, and almost choked with the horrible starched abomination which decency decreed that I should wear around my neck. It was very wearisome. Barwell was utterly careless and outraged custom with impunity, but I, who feared to do the wrong thing, always remained on the tenter-hooks of suspense. Barwell knew what should be done and seldom did it, while I, who was only learning the very rudimentary affectations of civilised society, took care to follow out the most stringent commands of etiquette whenever I became aware of those commands.
At the office of the Dawn I was reticent and backward. I lacked the cleverness, the smartness and readiness of expression with which other members of the staff were gifted. I had come into a new world, utterly foreign to me, and often I longed to be back again with Moleskin Joe on some long road leading to nowhere.
For a while my stories were not successful, although I made a point of seeing the things of which I wrote. I came back to the office every evening full of my subject, whether a florist's exhibition, a cat show, or a police court case, and sat down seriously to write my story. When half-written I tore it up seriously and began again. When satisfied with the whole completed account I took it to the sub-editor, who read it seriously and seriously threw it into the waste-paper basket. At the end of the first week I found that only two articles of mine had appeared in the Dawn. I had written eight.
"You write in too serious a vein for a modern paper," said the sub-editor.
When the spring came round I could feel, even in Fleet Street, the spell of the old roving days come over me; those days when Moleskin and I tramped along the roads of Scotland, thanking God for the little scraps of tobacco which we found in our pockets, while wondering where the next pipeful could be obtained! My heart went out to the old mates and the old places. I had a longing for the little fire in the darkness, the smell of the wet earth, the first glimpse of the bend in the road, and the dream about the world of mystery lying round the corner. When I went across Blackfriars Bridge, or along the Strand, on a cold, bracing morning, I wanted to walk on ever so far, away—away. Where to—it didn't matter. The office choked me, smothered me; it felt so like a prison. I wanted to be with Moleskin Joe, and often I asked myself, "Where is he now? what is my old comrade doing at this moment? Is the old vagabond still happy in his wanderings and his hopes of a good time coming, or has he finished up his last shift and handed in his final check for good and all?" Often I longed to see him again and travel with him to new and strange places.
Of my salary, now three pounds a week, I sent a guinea home to my own people every Saturday. Of course, now, getting so much, they wanted more. Journalism to them implied some hazy kind of work where money was stint-less and to be had for the asking. My other brothers were going out into the world now, and my eldest sister had gone to America. "I wish that I could keep them at home," wrote my mother. "You are so long away now that we do not miss you."
"Will you go down to Cyfladd, Flynn, and write some 'stories' about the coal strike?" asked the news editor one morning. "I think that you have a natural bent for these labour affairs. Your navvy stories were undoubtedly good, and even a spicy bit of socialism added to their charm."
"Spicy bit of socialism, indeed!" broke in the irrepressible Barwell. "The day will come when the working men of England shall invade London and decorate Fleet Street with the gibbeted bodies of hireling editors. Have you a cigarette to spare, Manwell?"
"You go down to Cyfladd, Flynn," said the news editor, handing his cigarette-case to Barwell. "See what is doing there and write up good human stories dealing with the discontent of the workers. Do not be afraid to state things bluntly. Tell about their drinking and quarrelling, and if you come across miners who are in good circumstance don't fail to write about it."
"But suppose for a moment that he comes across men who are really poor, men who may not have had enough wages to make both ends meet, what is he to do?" asked loquacious Barwell, the socialistic Philistine, who played with ideas for the mere sake of the ideas. "For myself, I do not believe in the right to strike, and I admire the man who starves to death without making a fuss. Why should uncultured and uneducated miners create a fuss if they are starved to death in order to satisfy the needs of honourable and learned gentlemen? What right has a common worker to ask for higher wages? What right has he to take a wife and bring up children? The children of the poor should be fattened and served up on the tables of the rich, as advocated by Dean Swift in an age prior to the existence of the Dawn. The children of the poor who cannot become workers become wastrels; the rich wastrels wear eye-glasses and spats. We have no place in the scheme of things for the wastrels who wear neither eye-glasses nor spats, therefore I believe that it would be good for the nation if many of the children of the poor were fattened, killed, and eaten. But I am wandering from the point. Let us look at the highly improbable supposition of which I have spoken. It is highly improbable, of course, that there are poor people amongst the miners, for they have little time to spend the money which they take so long to earn. Now and again they die, leaving a week's wages lying at the pay-office. I have heard of cases like that several times. These men, who are out on strike, may leave a whole week's pay to their wives and children when they die, and for all that they grumble and go out on strike! But we cannot expect anything else from uneducated workmen. I am wandering from the point again, and the point is this: Suppose, for an instant, that Flynn doesn't find a rich, quarrelsome, and drunken miner in Cyfladd, what is he to do? Return again?"
"You're a fool, Barwell!" said the news editor.
"Manwell, you're a confirmed fool," Barwell replied.
I put on my coat and hat, stuffed my gloves, which I hated, into my pocket, and went out into the street. The morning was dry and cold, the air was exhilarating and good to breathe. I gulped it down in mighty mouthfuls. It was good to be in the open street and feel the little winds whipping by in mad haste. Up in the office, steaming with cigarette smoke, it was so stuffy, so dead. Everything there was so artificial, so unreal, and I was altogether out of sympathy with all the individuals on the Dawn. "Do I like the Dawn?" I asked myself. I wanted to face things frankly at that moment. "Do I like journalism, or merely feel that I should like it?" But I made no effort to answer the question; it was not very important, and now I was walking hurriedly, trying to keep myself warm. Two things occurred to me at the same instant: I was short of money and I had not asked for my railway fare to Wales at the office. Where did the train start from? Was it Euston? I did not exactly know, and somehow it didn't seem to matter.
I would not go to Wales; I did not want to analyse my reasons for not going, but I was determined not to go. I felt that in going I would be betraying my own class, the workers. Moleskin Joe would never dream of doing a thing like that; why should I? I must make some excuse at the office, I thought, but asked myself the next instant why should I make any excuses? Besides, the office was like a prison; it choked me. I wanted to leave, but somehow felt that I ought not.
I found myself going along Gray's Inn Road towards my lodging-house. A girl opened a window and looked at me with a vacant stare. She was speaking to somebody in the room behind her and her voice trailed before me like a thin mist. She somewhat resembled Norah Ryan: the same white brow, the red lips, only that this girl had a sorrowful look in her eyes, as if too many weary thoughts had found expression there.
How often during the last four months had I thought of Norah Ryan. I longed for her with a mighty longing, and now that she was alone and in great trouble it was my duty to help her. I felt angry with myself for going up to London when I should have followed up my holier mission in Glasgow. What was fortune and fame to me if I did not make the girl whom I really loved happy? Daily it became clearer to me that I was earnestly and madly in love with Norah. We were meant for one another from childhood, although destiny played against us for a while. I would find her again and we would be happy, very happy, together, and the past would be blotted out in the great happiness which would be ours in the future. To me Norah was always pure and always good. In her I saw no wrong, no sin, and no evil. I would look for her until I found her, and finding her would do my best to make her happy.
The girl closed the window as I passed. I came to my lodgings, paid the landlady, and wrote to the Dawn saying that I was leaving London. I intended to tramp to the north, but a story of mine had just been published in —— and the money came to hand while I was settling with the landlady.
I learned later that Barwell went down to Wales. That night I set off by rail for Glasgow.