Complete New Tales of Para Handy Read Online Free PDF

found themselves under threat from the new upstarts.
    Probably the greatest duel of all, however, was played out on an almost daily basis between the established paddle-powered speedsters Lord of the Isles and Columba. They both ran daily services from Glasgow to Bute and on through the Kyles: the Columba to Tarbert and Ardrishaig, her rival continuing north to Inveraray.
    Their schedules usually found them leaving Rothesay on the outward passage at exactly the same time, and from there it was a race to reach the Kyles piers (the first of these being Colintraive) ahead of the opposition. The passengers invariably took up an extremely partisan stance but, as the contemporary newspaper accounts testify, they were as ready to heap abuse on a losing Captain as they were to cheer a winner’s triumph.

    T URBINE E LEGANCE — King Edward was launched from Denny Brothers’ Dumbarton Yard in 1901 — the world’s first turbine-powered merchant vessel — and ran the daily service from Greenock Princes Pier to Campbeltown and return. Capable of over 20 knots, she is seen here edging into the Kintyre capital’s pier with a ‘standing room only’ crowd on board. Note the vessels on the stocks of the shipyard in the background.

4
    Trouble for the Tar
    F rom the deck of the Vital Spark the crew watched with interest as a large gaff-rigged ketch, having successfully and skilfully negotiated the deceptively narrow opening into the inner harbour at Rothesay, nosed in to the stone quayside, one of her hands standing in the bow pulpit making ready to throw a line ashore. In the capacious cockpit immediately astern of her substantial main cabin stood three elegantly turned-out men with a fourth, presumably the owner, at the wheel.
    â€œA chentleman’s life,” said Para Handy, “There iss no better way to see the world than in a yat! They’ll no’ have problems wi’ harbour-masters or ship’s captains. Welcome whereffer they care to go, and steam aalways gives way to sail!”
    Dan Macphail, with a watchful eye on the derrick as he swung another swaying bundle of fencing-stobs outboard to the waiting cart on the quayside, nodded agreement. “Aye, they huv it easy compared wi’ the likes of us. The workers is aye the worst aff in this world, it’s the gentry that comes oot best. Ah wudna say no to a poseetion on a yat!”
    â€œMe too,” cried Sunny Jim from the depths of the hold. “Just imagine no’ havin’ tae work wi’ a cargo of coals ever again! A life of ease!”
    â€œMind you,” said Para Handy, “even the lads on the yats have problems sometimes. Take your predecessor Jum, your kizzin Colin Turner the Tar, for instance. Crewin’ on a yat nearly cost him his merriage…”
    â€œTell us the baur,” said Jim, peering over the coaming of the hatchway. On the quayside the now fully-loaded horse-and-cart was heading for the town, and since there was as yet no sign of the second cart returning, a few minutes of rest and relaxation were in prospect.
    Para Handy scratched his ear reflectively. “Well, it wass like this…

    â€œAss you aal know, the Tar got merrit on wan Lucy McCallum, a Campbeltown gyurl, and left the shup soon efter the weddin’. He took a chob in a distillery in the toon ass a cooperage hand and he learnt his tred and for three years efferything went fine for the young couple. They rented a single-end chust off Main Street and Lucy had two weans, a boy and a gyurl. Mercifully it seemed they wud tak’ efter her rather than their faither in character ass well ass in looks, for he wass idle, the Tar, idle — and blate wi’ it.
    â€œBut it wassna his fault he lost his chob at the distillery, for it wass at a time o’ sleck orders in the spurits tred and the man that owned it chust shut it doon — not for good, but for a few months till there wass demand