Emmett

“ Of course, there was all sorts of talk about this in Cebada. Some of the meaner folks, those who owed Emmett money, said the reason he sickened and died was because he remembered that his Uncle Peter had promised to give Emmett that five-dollar raise on Emmett’s twenty-first birthday and, because Emmett was mistaken in his birthday, the increased pay had not begun until Emmett was twenty-two, and that thus Emmett had lost five dollars a week for a solid fifty-two weeks, back [Pg 31] in 1864, and that the thought had been too much for him. ”

“ His mouth was large, but his lips were thin, and shut so closely that when, in silence, he looked at Mr Emmett, only a slender red line was visible to show that a mouth was there. His black hair, parted on one side, was a little in disorder, some of it straggled over his forehead. Disorder, indeed, was the dominant note of the man. As she watched him the girl had a feeling that he was too much moved by some inward excitement to be over-particular about the small niceties of his attire. ”

“ George Emmett?--I am sure her guardian's name was Emmett; but Strathmoira told mother that he'd brought her here because her guardian wasn't very well; but this Emmett's dead, according to the paper--it talks about his 'tragic fate'--I wonder in what way his fate was tragic. It can't be the same man; why did Mrs Purchas associate Dorothy with Newcaster? ”

“ He was going on to say that he here and now invited one and all to come to his birthday party a year from then, when Obed Riggs, the assistant postmaster of Cebada, pushed into the room. He was panting a little, because he had run all the way from the post-office. The evening mail had arrived and among it was a package for Emmett, all the way from Oregon, and Obed guessed rightly that it was a birthday present from Emmett’s sister Aurelia, and he had hurried to put it in Emmett’s hands. ”

“ I got him up on Kate, but he was cruel heavy for all he was such a tall skinny fellow. Then I wrapped that there baby up in the cape thing and took him home and give him to Marthy. And the next day I buried the fellow in the south medder and next meetin' day we had the baby baptized Matthew Daniel Emmett, and brung him up just like our own kids. That's all.
All? Mr. Emmett, didn't you ever find out where that ship really came from?
Why, Rev'rend, he said it come from a star. Dying men don't lie, you know that. ”

“ I gather from what you say, Miss Gilbert, that you have a large number of friends."
"I!" The girl's eyes were suddenly opened wide. "Why, I haven't a friend in the whole world, except Frances, whom I may never see again; and, perhaps, Sister Celestine; who, I daresay, never wants to see me again--at the convent they found it so hard to get money from father. I don't believe they'd have let Mr Emmett take me away if it hadn't been that he paid all that father owed. ”

“ You can't remember what the stranger said to Emmett?--what they were disputing about?"
"I can't; I may do later, but I can't now. My brain was so stupefied, I was in such a state of cowardice, that I heard--without hearing; certainly without understanding."
"You can't recall even a single phrase?"
"No, I can't; I tell you I can't! Why will you persist in asking?"
"Please don't suppose, Miss Gilbert, that I wish to worry you; to cause you pain; nothing can be farther from my wish; but I do want you to appreciate the situation; to put you on your guard. ”

“ It was in the hall of the hotel after dinner, just as she was going up to bed; always, so soon as dinner was over, she went straight to her room. Billson, the chauffeur, happened to enter at the moment, to get orders for the morrow. Emmett, turning, saw him grinning at his discomfiture.
"By----!" he cried, eager to vent his fury on someone. "If you don't take care I'll kill you!"
But Billson never flinched; and he continued to grin. He was a shortish, youngish man, with a white, clean-shaven face, and black hair, which he wore parted in the middle. ”

“ The other replied:
"One has to be a little that way if one is responsible for you."
The new-comer's good-humoured curtness seemed to disturb the stranger's equilibrium.
"Responsible for me, indeed! Upon my word, you are the most extraordinary man."
In his own fashion the stranger introduced the new-comer to Rodney.
"This is Dr. Emmett, my medical attendant. I left him behind me in Brighton because I am sick and tired of his society; yet here he is at Croydon before I am. How he does these things I do not understand. He's a most extraordinary man." ”

“ My dear!--I should hope I do! How we all looked at that silly old convent! But, tell me, how do I look?--really?--that miserable Jim just said I looked a perfect fright."
"I was just thinking how lovely that girl in the boat did look; and--she turned out to be you."
"My dear, you're an angel! I always was fond of you, but if you keep on saying darling things to me like that----! What's become of your guardian? Where is Mr Emmett?"
"I--" Dorothy was about to say, "I left him behind in Newcaster"; but she changed the form of her sentence to--"I haven't brought him with me." ”

“ He said things of her," the speaker's voice quivered, "which I do not care to recount at second hand to you. 'Lizzie Emmett, 14 Hercules Buildings, Westminster,' was on the paper, and it was of you those things were said."
"Me!"
The actress moved slightly away from the fireplace, speaking with a strength of feeling and an eloquence of gesture which, had she been capable of such efforts on the stage, would have gained her immortality.
"It may be sport to you--I daresay it is, there was a time when I used to think that sort of thing was sport--but it is death to me. Death! ”

“ I simply say that that young woman must be found, and, if your good lady can't find her, someone else will have to, because found she's got to be--and pretty soon."
"Quite so, Mr Tinney, quite so; no one denies it for a single instant. I only wish that I had known of her existence sooner; much trouble might have been saved."
How that was, was not quite clear. The inspector made no comment. He turned to the waiter.
"Now, Mr Timmins, about this gentleman whom you say Mr Emmett went out to see. Did you know him? Was he a stranger? What did he look like?" ”

“ Anyhow, one thing's certain sure, this little lot ain't meant for me. I don't know nothing about no Jack Smith, nor yet about no Earl of Bermondsey neither, and I don't want to; and as for oily foreigners, I can't abide 'em. I'll just take the entire boiling to Miss Graham. Perhaps she'll be able to twig the bloke's little lay; it's more than I can."
II
Lizzie Emmett had already departed some time when fresh visitors made an unceremonious entry into her empty room. ”

“ When enclosed in his cell, Emmet became the object of apparent concern and affection on the part of two acquaintances: the accomplished advocate and litterateur, Mr. Leonard M’Nally, and Dr. Trevor, Superintendent of Prisons. If these persons had stepped out of an ancient epic or some fancied tragedy to show what human genius could do by way of creating hypocrites, no plaudit ever yet given could be worthy of the play. ”

“ Through the soles of his feet he could feel the pavement vibrating faintly, as deep inside the bowels of the moon, the mechanical mining worms gnawed out the ore, chewed it, digested it, spat it out as metal ingots. ”

“ She glared at him through the semi-gloom without replying. The buildings flowed past the windows, the green glow of lichens and moss illuminating the street with about the same intensity as a full moon's light on Terra. ”

“ For Emmet, finely gifted though he was, was just a young man with the same limitations, the same self-questionings, the same falterings, the same kindly human emotions surging up sometimes in such strength as almost to drown a heroic purpose, as many a young man we have known. ”

“ He entered the pavilion stooping slightly and stopped—like a machine subject to its operator's whim.
The Anolyns made no sound. They regarded him in utter silence, their tentacles waving in the air like the feelers of a cricket.
"What do you want?" Jupiter tried to ask and found that his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. ”

“ I wish I could help you to realise, I wish I could myself adequately realise, the humanity, the gentle and grave humanity, of Emmet. We are so dominated by the memory of that splendid death of his, by the memory of that young figure, serene and smiling, climbing to the gallows above that sea of silent men in Thomas Street, that we forget the life of which that death was only the necessary completion: and the life has perhaps a nearer meaning for us than the death. ”

“ You do me honour overmuch. You have given to the subaltern all the credit of the superior.” He [91] turned half-smiling to the presiding judge. “There are men concerned in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conception of yourself, my lord.” At the final moment of his life Emmet stood motionless with a handkerchief in his hand, the fall of which was to be the signal for the cart to be drawn away. ”

“ Emmet lives in it, and outlives. It is the compensation of a lot cast in a planet where even our own honourable action has a trick of turning hostile and smearing us, that there is something in the best of us which cannot be smeared. Robert Emmet’s large soul has, like a magician, pieced together his broken body, the symbol of his broken, mistimed, and because mistimed, unhallowed effort. But only his own soul [89] has done it, and by a power within, shaking herself clear of censure. Mr. Henry Curran devotes to him a reticent paragraph obliquely affectionate. ”

“ Taxation without representation is just as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as unfair for the negro as it is to the white man, and we all, both white and black, know this. We may shut our eyes to this great truth, as sometimes we do, but it is unjust just the same. ”

“ The proprietors can still retain their piles of halfburnt clay and matchwood; and in a ghastly wilderness of hollow, empty houses, they may sit at gaping doors and melancholy windows, and in sorrow beg their bread as showmen and joint fabricators of the biggest and the ugliest folly that has been inflicted on the world. ”

“ The cabin flooded with brilliance.
The body of Trev, the Martian was stretched stark and cold on the metal deck!
Gavin bent shakily over the broker of slaves and scientific secrets. Trev's black eyes were open, glassy. A thin three cornered sliver of metal protruded from his throat. The Martian would never steal the Nova's space drive now. He had been shot with a poisoned dart.
Suddenly, a tremendous weight fell on Gavin's shoulders. He was squashed flat to the deck beside the dead Martian, pinned there. The breath was crushed from his chest, and he struggled wildly to inflate his lungs. ”

“ One farm bought, one house built, one home sweetly and intelligently kept, one man who is the largest taxpayer or has the largest bank account, one school or church maintained, one factory running successfully, one truck garden profitably cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doctor, one sermon well preached, one office well filled, one life cleanly lived—these will tell more in our favor than all the abstract eloquence that can be summoned to plead our cause. ”

“ It was no bigger than a large monkey. Eight spidery arms sprouted from its grotesque body which was covered with a glittering purple shell like a huge mollusk. Jupiter Jones noted these details almost before the creatures recovered from their surprise at the blinding light. His first impression of the purple-shelled octopod in the litter had been that it must be a captive. ”

“ Gavin fled up the ladder.
He came out on the observation deck and recognized Nadia in her gray coveralls seated in a deck chair and staring upward at the stars. They floated in the void like gems on black velvet.
He came up behind her saying, "Some day man will conquer outer space as he has the planetary system."
Nadia sat up, her black eyes provoked. "What are you? A fish? After all I'm supposed to have a passion for you. Didn't I say back in Trev's office that we had a lot to talk over, Mr. Gavin Murdock, ex-chief engineer of the Europa?" ”

“ Joel thought the dancer sounded envious. They were shuffling single file down a long corridor that led straight into the bowels of the ship. A vague rumbling made the deck tremble beneath his feet. He heard shouted orders, the sound of the gangplank being run in. ”

“ At least half of the purple-shelled octopods had been consumed instantly by the jets. The Anolyn who remained alive were scuttling for the protection of the jungle. Jupiter swung the needle gun into action.
The Nehogans had outstripped their slow-moving masters, who crawled like a cluster of frightened tortoises across the bare, flat land. The sides of the valley were alive with humans ”

“ The web-birds had dropped onto the pair in the open. Jupiter could see neither Reiloc nor Tabak. Only the monstrous fluttering of the creature's wings. Then the flock lifted slowly into the air bearing the Nehogan and the Caligan girl aloft. Jupiter didn't dare fire for fear of hitting either the one or the other.
They rose higher, higher, then straight as wild bees they lined out for the distant city by the Dra Dur.
Jupiter was beside himself with helpless rage and consternation. He couldn't chase them in the starship. It would be like attempting to follow a school of fish in an ocean liner. ”