Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1898-06-11

of freight according TO the risk, and he
was employed as carrier by those who
paid the higher price, If there was any
right or wrong about the question, it
was a purely private matter between
Mr.. Gedge and his God. He, Owen Ket-
tie, was as impersonal in the business
as the ancient Sultan of Borneo herself
He was mere cog in some complex
machinery, and if he was earning heav-
en- it was by piety inside the chapel
ashore and not by professional exertions
Tin the interests of an earthly employer)
elsewhere
He took ferry across the filthy Tyne
and walked down alleys and squalid
streets, where coal dust formed the mud
and the air was sour with foreign va
pors. And as he walked he champed still
at the unlit cigar and brooded over the
angularity of his fate. But when he
passed between the gates of the dock
oompany's premises and exchanged
words with the policeman on guard
change came over him. He threw away
the cigar stump. frightened his lips and
left all thoughts of personal matters
outside the doorsill. He was Mr.
Gedge's hired servant. His brain was
devoted to furthering Gedge's interests
and all the acid OF his tongue was ready
to spur on those who did the mammal
work on Gedge's ship.
Within minute of his arrival on
her decks the Sultan of Borneo was be-
ing unmoored from the bollards on the
quay; within ten, her winches were
gathering and bucking as they warped
her across to the black straddling coal
shoots at the other side of the dock, and
within half an hour the cargo was
roaring down her matches as fast as the
railway wagons on the grimy trestle
overhead could disghrge. The halo of
coal dust made day into dusk; the grit
of it filed every Granny and settled as
an anonymous scum on the water of the
dock, and laborers hired by the hour
toiled at piece work pace through sheer
terror at their employer Ii his other
failings could have been eliminated the
little skipper with the red peaked beard
would certainly have been, from an
owners point of view, the best com
mander sailing out of any English port
No man ever wrencbed such magnifi-
cent amount Of work from his hands
But it was those other failings which
kept him what he was, the pitiful
knockabout shipmaster, living from
hand to mouth, never certain of his
berth from one months end to another.
That afternoon Captain Kettle signed
on his crew, got them on board and
with the help of his two mates kicked
the majority of them into sobriety. He
received visit and final instructions
from Gedge at o'clock, and by night
fall he had filed in his papers, warped
out of dock and stood anxiously on the
bridge watching the pilot as he took the
steam boat down through the crowded
shipping of the river His wife stood
under the glowing arc lamp on the
dock head and waved him goodby
through the gloom.
Captain Kettle received his first
fright as he dropped his pilot just out
side the Tyne pier heads. A man-of-
wars launch steamed up out of the
night, and the boarding officer examined
his papers and asked questions. The
little captain, conscious of having no
contraband of war on board just then,
was brutally rude, but the naval officer
remained stolid and refused to see the
insults which were pitched at him. He
had an unpalatable duty to perform; he