The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shellback's Progress, by Walter Runciman

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Title: The Shellback's Progress
In the Nineteenth Century

Author: Walter Runciman

Release Date: September 28, 2007 [EBook #22794]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: FLOUNDERING OF THE "SILVERSPRAY."]

THE SHELLBACK'S PROGRESS

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

_By_

WALTER RUNCIMAN, _Sen._

LONDON AND NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE:
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: 3 EAST 14th STREET.
1904.

DEDICATION

_TO WALTER TOWNEND, ESQ._

"MY DEAR TOWNEND,--Perhaps no two men have ever been bound together
with ties of closer or more loyal friendship than you and myself. Many
years have elapsed since our unbroken comradeship was formed in the old
historic building in Cornhill. You have many claims to friendship and
to confidence, and perhaps you can hardly realize what pleasure it
gives me to remember that during our intercourse of so many years, your
sincerity, directness and single-mindedness could always be depended
upon. Your joyful relish of a tale of human interest, whether as a
listener or a narrator, is always contagious. Your indignation and
scorn for unmanly and dishonourable conduct, and your quick appreciation
of whatever is generous and true; this, and my high regard for your
own personal worth, have given me the wish to inscribe this volume
of sea stories to you.

"Ever yours sincerely,

"WALTER RUNCIMAN."

_August, 1904_

PREFACE

These stories are drawn from the reality of things, and perhaps I may
as well say that they have been written during short intervals snatched
from a busy and absorbing commercial life. I have tried to portray the
men as they were--brave, dauntless, rugged, uncouth, illiterate,
simple-minded, kind-hearted, and, at times, unmercifully savage. And
yet there shone through all these conflictingly peculiar eccentricities
a humorous kind of religion which belonged exclusively to themselves,
but