CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IRISH NAVVY BY PATRICK MACGILL [Illustration: Logo] NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND. 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