Shifting Winds

Shifting Winds, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Shifting Winds A Tough Yarn
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21702]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIFTING
WINDS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Shifting Winds, by R.M. Ballantyne
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As so often with Ballantyne's books there are really several tales all
told in parallel in this book. There is the story of the seaman Gaff and
his son Billy, there is the story of Mrs Gaff, there is Haco Barepoles,
there is Captain Bingley and his son Gildart, there is the Stuart family.
All these characters are very well drawn, and their lives merge
together and move apart to a surprising degree. With a fundamentally
Christian message, this book also depicts the work of the Shipwrecked
Mariners and Fishermen Institution. Although there are incidents at
sea, most of the action takes place in the small fishing village of
Wreckumoft, and the town of Athenbury. One of the great values of
Ballantyne's books is the insight he gives into life in Britain in the
nineteenth century, not just the day-to-day lives of the actors, but the
motives that propel them, and the upbringing that these actors had. We
are, however, mystified by the title, which made one think that the book
might be something to do with ballooning!
Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in 1825 and died in 1894. He was
educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and in 1841 he became a clerk
with the Hudson Bay Company, working at the Red River Settlement in
Northen Canada until 1847, arriving back in Edinburgh in 1848. The
letters he had written home were very amusing in their description of
backwoods life, and his family publishing connections suggested that
he should construct a book based on these letters. Three of his most
enduring books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur
Traders", "Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on
his experiences with the HBC. In this period he also wrote "The Coral
island" and "Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never
visited by Ballantyne. Having been chided for small mistakes he made
in these books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about.
With these books he became known as a great master of literature
intended for teenagers. He researched the Cornish Mines, the London
Fire Brigade, the Postal Service, the Railways, the laying down of
submarine telegraph cables, the construction of light-houses, the
light-ship service, the life- boat service, South Africa, Norway, the
North Sea fishing fleet, ballooning, deep-sea diving, Algiers, and many
more, experiencing the lives of the men and women in these settings by
living with them for weeks and months at a time, and he lived as they

lived.
He was a very true-to-life author, depicting the often squalid scenes he
encountered with great care and attention to detail. His young readers
looked forward eagerly to his next books, and through the 1860s and
1870s there was a flow of books from his pen, sometimes four in a year,
all very good reading. The rate of production diminished in the last ten
or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.
He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books
for very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".
For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi". In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little dissolute,
and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how they
ought to behave, as he felt he had been.
Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages. These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money. These books are particularly well-written and
researched, because he wanted that readership to get the very best
possible for their money. They were published as six series, three books
in each series.
Re-created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, October 2003.
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SHIFTING WINDS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE COTTAGE AND ITS INMATES.
The family board was spread; the family kettle--an unusually fat one--

was singing on the fire, and the family chimney was roaring like