“
The cold tang of the dawn was already in the air and the smell of the earth was keen in our nostrils, when Moleskin Joe and I breasted the steep shoulder of a hill together, and saw the outer line of derricks standing gaunt against the bald cliffs of Kinlochleven. From the crest of the rise we could see the lilac grey vesture of the twilight unfold itself from off the naked peaks that stood out boldly in the ghostly air like carved gargoyles of some mammoth sculpture. A sense of strange remotene
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”
― Children of the Dead End
― Children of the Dead End
“
There were so many tons of earth to be lifted and thrown somewhere else; we lifted them and threw them somewhere else: so many cubic yards of iron-hard rocks to be blasted and carried away; we blasted and carried them away, but never asked questions and never knew what results we were labouring to bring about. We turned the Highlands into a cinder-heap, and were as wise at the beginning as the end of the task. Only when we completed the job, and returned to the town, did we learn from the newspa
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”
― Children of the Dead End
― Children of the Dead End


















