Before the Mast

To serve before the mast. To be one of the common sailors, whose quarters are in the forward part of the ship. The half-deck is the sanctum of the second mate, and, in Greenland fishers, of the spikeoneer, harpooners, carpenters, coopers, boatswains, and all secondary officers; of low birth.

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“I myself come from before the mast.”—Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary, chap. xx.