"I've navvied here in Scotland, I've navvied in the south, Without a drink to cheer me or a crust to cross me mouth, I fed when I was workin' and starved when out on tramp, And the stone has been me pillow and the moon above me lamp. I have drunk me share and over when I was flush with tin, For the drouth without was nothin' to the drouth that burned within! And where'er I've filled me billy and where'er I've drained me can, I've done it like a navvy, a bold navvy man. A bold navvy man, An old navvy man, And I've done me graft and stuck it like a bold navvy man.
"I've met a lot of women and I liked them all a spell-- They drive some men to drinkin' and also some to hell, But I have never met her yet, the woman cute who can Learn a trick to Old Nick or the bold navvy man. Oh! the sly navvy man, And the fly navvy man, Sure a woman's always runnin' to the bold navvy man.
"I do not care for ladies grand who are of high degree, A winsome wench and willin', she is just the one for me, Drink and love are classed as sins, as mortal sins by some, I'll drink and drink whene'er I can, the drouth is sure to come-- And I will love till lusty life runs out its mortal span, The end of which is in the ditch for many a navvy man. The bold navvy man, The old navvy man, Safe in a ditch with heels cocked up, so dies the navvy man.
"I've splashed a thousand models red and raised up fiery Cain From Glasgow down to Dover Pier and back that road again; I've fought me man for hours on end, stark naked to the buff And me and him, we never knew when we had got enough. 'Twas skin and hair all flyin' round and red blood up and out, And me or him could hardly tell what brought the fight about.-- 'Tis wenches, work and fight and fun and drink whene'er I can That makes the life of stress and strife as suits the navvy man!
"Let her go, boys; let her go now!" roared Clancy, rising to his feet, kicking a stray frying-pan and causing it to clatter across the shack. "All together, boys; damn you, all together!
"Then hurrah! ev'ry one For the bold navvy man, For fun and fight are damned all right for any navvy man!"
Even old Sandy MacDonald joined in the chorus with his weak and querulous voice. The winter was touching him sharply, and he was worse off than any of us. Along with the cold he had his wasting disease to battle against, and God alone knew how he managed to work along with his strong and lusty mates on the hammer squad at Kinlochleven. Sandy was not an old man, but what with the dry cough that was in his throat and the shivers of cold that came over him after a long sweaty shift, it was easily seen that he had not many months to live in this world. He looked like a parcel of bones covered with brown withered parchment and set in the form of a man. How life could remain fretting within such a frame as his was a mystery which I could not solve. Almost beyond the effects of heat or cold, the cold sweat came out of his skin on the sweltering warm days, and when the winter came along, the chilly weather hardly made him colder than he was by nature. His cough never kept silent; sometimes it was like the bark of a dog, at other times it seemed as if it would carry the very entrails out of the man. In the summer he spat blood with it, but usually it was drier than the east wind.