Martin Rattler

"e;MARTIN RATTLER"e; was one of, Robert Michael Ballantyne's early books. Born at Edinburgh in 1825,[1] he was sent to Rupert's Land as a trading-clerk in the Hudson Bay Fur Company's service when he left school, a boy of sixteen. There, to relieve his home-sickness, he first practised his pen in long letters home to his mother. Soon after his return to Scotland in 1848 he published a first book on Hudson's Bay. Then he passed some years in a Scottish publisher's office; and in 1855 a chance suggestion from another publisher led to his writing his first book for boys-"e;Snowflakes and Sunbeams, or The Young Fur Traders."e; That story showed he had found his vocation, and he poured forth its successors to the tune in all of some fourscore volumes. "e;Martin Rattler"e; appeared in 1858. In his "e;Personal Reminiscences"e; Ballantyne wrote: "e;How many thousands of lads have an intense liking for the idea of a sailor's life!"e; and he pointed out there the other side of the romantic picture: the long watches "e;in dirty unromantic weather,"e; and the hard work of holystoning the decks, scraping down the masts and cleaning out the coal-hole. But though his books show something of this reverse side too, there is no doubt they have helped to set many boys dreaming o