Oor ain folk times

148 THE BALTIC SKIPPEBS
sidered to be taut, well -built, roomy schooners or
barques, each of them engaged in the Baltic trade. I
can well remember the awesome delight with which I
first made acquaintance with the — to a schoolboy's
mind — romantic realm of adventure represented by one
of these old, foul-smelling, dingy-cabined grain-carriers,
which then formed part of the numerous fleet trading
between the east coast of Scotland and the Baltic ports.
No doubt they would be called ' tubs ' nowadays, with
their gloomy cabins, their steep, breakneck companion-
ways, high unwieldy bulwarks, bluff bows, and bewil-
dering network of running gear. But many a battle
was waged with northern gale and treacherous icepack
in these lumbering old crafts ; and they formed a
splendid school for the young and daring spirits who
there learned the lessons of hardihood and endurance
which have secured the supremacy of the seas for the
navies of Britain.
The Baltic skipper of the day was an individuality
sui generis. His genus is now well-nigh obsolete. My
old uncle Sandie, who was for some decades harbour-
master of Montrose, was a typical specimen. Short,
squat, broad-shouldered, bandy-legged, weather-beaten,
with grizzled, scanty locks flying in admired confusion
from beneath his nautical _ hat. Choleric in temper,
with a voice like a fog-horn, a face like a ' full moon in
a fog,' hands and arms gnarled like the bark of a tree,
with two fingers contorted and rigid, where the icy
breath of the northern seas had frozen the rope to his
hand during one perilous passage through the narrow
Baltic Straits. Such was his outward aspect. The old
man did not perhaps present a very inviting appearance