CONTENTS
| I. | [THE 'BLUE PETER'] |
| II. | [STEERSMANSHIP] |
| III. | [THE WAY OF THE HALF-DECK] |
| IV. | [THE 'DEAD HORSE'] |
| V. | ['SEA PRICE'] |
| VI. | [ROUNDING THE HORN] |
| VII. | [A HOT CARGO] |
| VIII. | [WORK!] |
| IX. | [IN 'FRISCO TOWN] |
| X. | [THE DIFFICULTY WITH THE 'TORREADOR'S'] |
| XI. | [THE 'CONVALESCENT'] |
| XII. | [ON THE SACRAMENTO] |
| XIII. | [HOMEWARD!] |
| XIV. | [A TRICK AT THE WHEEL] |
| XV. | [''OLY JOES'] |
| XVI. | [EAST, HALF SOUTH!] |
| XVII. | [ADRIFT] |
| XVIII. | ["——AFTER FORTY YEAR!"] |
| XIX. | ['IN LITTLE SCOTLAND'] |
| XX. | [UNDER THE FLAG] |
| XXI. | ['DOLDRUMS'] |
| XXII. | [ON SUNDAY] |
| XXIII. | [A LANDFALL] |
| XXIV. | [FALMOUTH FOR ORDERS] |
| XXV. | ["T' WIND'ARD!"] |
| XXVI. | [LIKE A MAN] |
| [EPILOGUE: "1910"] |
THE BRASSBOUNDER
I
THE 'BLUE PETER'
Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong. The university bells toll out in strength of tone that tells of south-west winds and misty weather. On the street below my window familiar city noises, unheeded by day, strike tellingly on the ear—hoof-strokes and rattle of wheels, tramp of feet on the stone flags, a snatch of song from a late reveller, then silence, broken in a little by the deep mournful note of a steamer's siren, wind-borne through the Kelvin Valley, or the shrilling of an engine whistle that marks a driver impatient at the junction points. Sleepless, I think of my coming voyage, of the long months—years, perhaps—that will come and go ere next I lie awake hearkening to the night voices of my native city. My days of holiday—an all too brief spell of comfort and shore living—are over; another peal or more of the familiar bells and my emissary of the fates—a Gorbals cabman, belike—will be at the door, ready to set me rattling over the granite setts on the direct road that leads by Bath Street, Finnieston, and Cape Horn—to San Francisco. A long voyage and a hard. And where next? No one seems to know! Anywhere where wind blows and square-sail can carry a freight. At the office on Saturday, the shipping clerk turned his palms out at my questioning.
"Home again, perhaps. The colonies! Up the Sound or across to Japan," he said, looking in his Murray's Diary and then at the clock, to see if there was time for him to nip home for his clubs and catch the 1.15 for Kilmacolm.
Nearly seventeen months of my apprenticeship remain to be served. Seventeen months of a hard sea life, between the masts of a starvation Scotch barque, in the roughest of seafaring, on the long voyage, the stormy track leading westward round the Horn.
It will be February or March when we get down there. Not the worst months, thank Heaven! but bad enough at the best. And we'll be badly off this voyage, for the owners have taken two able seamen off our complement. "Hard times!" they will be saying. Aye! hard times—for us, who will now have to share two men's weight in working our heavily sparred barque.