Some sang as they journeyed along. They sang about love, about drink, about women and gambling. Most of us joined in the singing. Maybe the man at the rear sang none, but we could not hear him if he did, he was so far behind.
The sun paled out and hid behind a hump of the mountain. Overhead a few stars twinkled mockingly. In the distance the streams could be heard falling over the cliffs. Still the mountain vomited out the human throng, and over all the darkness of the night settled slowly.
What did the men think of as they walked down from Kinlochleven? It is hard to say, for the inmost thoughts of a most intimate friend are hidden from us, for they lack expression and cannot be put into words. As to myself, I found that my thoughts were running back to Norah Ryan and the evenings we spent on the shores of the Clyde. I was looking backward; I had no thoughts, no plans, for the future.
I was now almost careless of life, indifferent towards fortune, and the dreams of youth had given place to a placid acceptance of stern realities. On the way up to the hills I had longed for things beyond my reach—wealth, comfort, and the love of fair women. But these longings had now given place to an almost unchanging calm, an indifference towards women, and an almost stoical outlook on the things that are. Nothing was to me pleasurable, nothing made me sad. During the last months in Kinlochleven I had very little desire for drink or cards, but true to custom I gave up neither. With no man except Moleskin did I exchange confidences, and even these were of the very slightest. To the rest of my mates I was always the same, except perhaps in the whisky saloon or in a fight. They thought me very strong in person and in character, but when I pried deeply into my own nature I found that I was full of vanity and weaknesses. The heat of a good fire after a hard day's work caused me to feel happier; hunger made me sour, a good meal made me cheerful. One day I was fit for any work; the next day I was lazy and heedless, and at times I so little resembled myself that I might be taken for a man of an entirely opposite character. Still, the river cannot be expected to take on the same form in shine as in shadow, in level as in steep, and in fall as in freshet. I am a creature of environment, an environment that is eternally changing. Not being a stone or clod, I change with it. I was a man of many humours, of many inconsistencies. The pain of a corn changed my outlook on life. Moleskin himself was sometimes disgusting in my sight; at other times I was only happy in his company. But all the time I was the same in the eyes of my mates, stolid, unsympathetic, and cold. In the end most of my moods went, and although I had mapped out no course of conduct, I settled into a temperate contentment, which, though far removed from gladness, had no connection with melancholy.
Since I came to Kinlochleven I had not looked on a woman, and the thoughts of womankind had almost entirely gone from my mind. With the rest of the men it was the same. The sexual instinct was almost dead in them. Women were merely dreams of long ago; they were so long out of sight that the desire for their company had almost expired in every man of us. Still, it was strange that I should think of Norah Ryan as I trudged down the hillside from Kinlochleven.
The men were still singing out their songs, and Joe hummed the chorus through the teeth that held his empty pipe as he walked along.
Suddenly the sound of singing died and Moleskin ceased his bellowing chorus. A great silence fell on the party. The nailed shoes rasping on the hard earth, and the half-whispered curse of some falling man as he tripped over a hidden boulder, were the only sounds that could be heard in the darkness.
And down the face of the mountain the ragged army tramped slowly on.