Why had my parents brought me into the world? I asked myself. Did they look to the future? At home I heard them say when a child was born to such and such a person that it was the will of God, just as if man and woman had nothing to do with the affair. I wished that I had never been born. My parents had sinned against me in bringing me into the world in which I had to fight for crumbs with the dogs of the gutter. And now they wanted money when I was hardly able to keep myself alive on what I earned. Bringing me into the world and then living on my labour—such an absurd and unjust state of things! I was angry, very angry, with myself and with everyone else, with the world and the people on it.
The evening was wet; the rain came down heavily, and I got drenched to the skin. While wandering in the town of Kilmacolm, my eye caught the light of a fire through the window-blind of an inn parlour. It would be very warm inside there. My flesh was shivery and my feet were cold, like lumps of ice, in my battered and worn boots. I went in, sat down, and when the bar-tender approached me, I called for a half-glass of whisky. I did not intend to drink it, having never drunk intoxicating liquor before, but I had to order something and was quite content to pay twopence for the heat of the fire. It was so very comfortable there that I almost fell asleep three or four times. Suddenly I began to feel thirsty; it seemed as if I was drying up inside, and the glass of whisky, sparkling brightly as the firelight caught it, looked very tempting. I raised it to my mouth, just to wet my lips, and the whisky tasted good. Almost without realising what I was doing I swallowed the contents of the glass.
At that moment a man entered, a man named Fergus Boyle, who belonged to the same arm of the Glen as myself, and he was then employed on a farm in the neighbourhood. I was pleased to see him. I had not seen a Glenmornan man since I had left Micky's Jim's squad, but Fergus brought no news from home; he had been in Scotland for over five years without a break. Without asking me, he called for "two schooners[5] of beer, with a stick[6] in iviry wan of them."
"Don't pull the hare's foot,[7] for I don't drink, Fergus," I said. I did not want to take any more liquor. I could hardly realise that I had just been drinking a moment before, the act being so unpremeditated. I came into the inn parlour solely to warm myself, and thinking still of that more than anything else I could hardly grasp what had resulted. I had a great dislike in my heart for drunken men, and I did not want to become one. Fergus sniffed at the glass beside me and winked knowingly. Evidences were against my assertion, and if I did not drink with Fergus he would say that I did not like his company. He was the first Glenmornan man whom I had seen for years, and I could not offend him. When the bar-tender brought the drinks I drained the schooner at one gulp, partly to please Fergus and partly because I was very dry. I stood treat then myself, as decency required, and my remembrance of subsequent events is very vague. In a misty sort of way I saw Fergus putting up his fists, as a Glenmornan man should when insulted, and knocking somebody down. There was a scuffle afterwards and I was somehow mixed up in it and laying out round me for all I was worth.
Dawn was breaking when I found myself lying on the toll-road, racked by a headache and suffering from extreme thirst. It was still raining and my clothes were covered with mud; one boot was gone and one sleeve of my coat was hanging by a mere thread. I found the sum of sevenpence in my pockets—the rest of the money had disappeared. I looked round for Fergus, but could not see him. About a hundred paces along the road I came on his cap and I saw the trace of his body in the wet muck. Probably he had slept there for a part of the night and crept away when the rain brought him to his senses. I looked high and low for my lost boot, but could not find it. I crept over the wall surrounding a cottage near the road and discovered a pair of boots in an outhouse. I put them on when I came back to the road and threw my own old one away. The pain in my head was almost intolerable, and my mind went back to the stories told by hard drinkers of the cure known as the "hair of the dog that bit you." So it was that I went into Kilmacolm again, not knowing how I came out, and waited until the pubs opened, when I drank a bottle of beer and a half-glass of whisky. My headache cleared away and I had threepence left and felt happy. By getting drunk the night before I made myself impervious to the rain and blind to the discomforts of the cold and the slush of the roadway. Drunkenness had no more terrors for me, and as a matter of course I often got drunk when a cold night rested over the houseless road, and when my body shuddered at the thought of spending hour after hour in the open. Drink kept me company, and there was no terror that we could not face together, drink and I.
I never have seen Fergus since, but often I think of the part which he played in my life. If he had not come into the inn at the moment when I was sitting by the fire I would probably never have drunk another glass of spirits in my life. I do not see anything wrong in taking liquor as long as a man makes it his slave. Drink was a slave to me. I used it for the betterment of my soul, and for the comfort of the body. In conformity with the laws of society an individual like me must sleep under a wet hedgerow now and again. There is nothing in the world more dismal. The water drops off the tree like water from the walls of a dungeon, splashes on your face, maybe dropping into the eyes when you open them. The hands are frozen, the legs are cold, heavy and dead; you hum little songs to yourself over and over again, ever the same song, for you have not the will to start a fresh one, and the cold creeps all over the body, coming closer and closer, like a thief to your heart. Sometimes it catches men who are too cold to move even from the spectre of death. The nights spent in the cold are horrible, are soul-killing. Only drink can draw a man from his misery; only by getting drunk may a man sleep well on the cold ground. So I have found, and so it was that I got drunk when I slept out on a winter's night. Maybe I would be dead in the morning, I sometimes thought, but no one would regret that, not even myself. Drink is a servant wonderfully efficient. Only when sober could I see myself as I really was, an outcast, a man rejected by society, and despised and forgotten. Often I would sit alone in a quiet place and think my life was hardly worth living. But somehow I kept on living a life that was to me as smoke is to the eyes, bitter and cruel. As time wore on I became primeval, animalised and brutish. Everything which I could lay hands on and which would serve my purposes was mine. The milk left by milkmen at the doors of houses in early morning was mine. How often in the grey dawn of a winter morning did I steal through a front gate silently as a cat and empty the milk-can hanging over some doorstep, then slip so silently away again that no one either heard my coming or going. It was most exciting, and excitement is one of the necessaries of life. Excitement appeals to me, I hanker after it as a hungry man hankers after food. I like to see people getting excited over something.
One evening in early spring, nearly two years after I had left Braxey Farm, I was passing a large house near G——, or was it P——? I now forget which of these towns was nearest the house. I had at that time a strange partiality for a curious form of amusement. I liked to steal up to large houses in the darkness and watch the occupants at dinner.
A large party was at dinner in the house on this spring evening, and I crept into the shrubbery and looked through the window into the lighted room. With the slushy earth under my body I lay and watched the people inside eating, drinking, and making merry. At the further end of the table a big fat woman in evening dress sat facing me, and she looked irrepressibly merry. Her low-cut frock exposed a great spread of bulging flesh stretching across from shoulder to shoulder. It was a most disgusting sight, and should have been hidden.
The damp of the earth came through my clothing and I rose to my feet, intending to go away. Before me lay the darkness, the night, and the cold. I am, as I said, very impulsive, and long for excitement. Some rash act would certainly enliven the dull dark hours. In rising, my hand encountered a large pebble, and suddenly an idea entered my mind. What would the old lady do if the pebble suddenly crashed through the window? If such a thing occurred it would be most amusing to witness her actions. I stepped out of the shrubbery in order to have a clear swing of the arm, and threw the stone through the window. There was a tinkling fall of broken glass, and everyone in the room turned to the window—everyone in the room except the old lady. She rose to her feet, and in another moment the door of the house opened and she stood in the doorway, her large form outlined against the light in the hall. So quickly had she come out that I had barely time to steal into the shrubbery. From there I crept backwards towards the road, but before I had completed half the journey I heard to my horror the fat lady calling for a dog. Then I heard a short, sharp yelp, and I turned and ran for all I was worth. Before I reached the gate a fairly-sized black animal was at my heels, squealing as I had heard dogs in Ireland squeal when pursuing a rabbit. I turned round suddenly, fearing to get bitten in the legs, and the animal, unable to restrain his mad rush, careered past. He tried to turn round, but my boot shot out and the blow took him on the head. This was an action that he did not relish, and he hurried back to the house, whimpering all the way. In a moment I was on the road, and I ran for a long distance, feeling that I had had enough excitement for one night. Needless to say I never threw a stone through a window again. I had been out of work for quite a long while and hunger was again pinching me. I remember well the day following my encounter with the fat lady and her dog, for on that day I sold my shirt in a rag-store in Glasgow and got the sum of sixpence for the same.