Emery

“ EMERY, JOHN (1777–1822) , actor, was born at Sunderland 22 Sept. 1777, and obtained a rudimentary education at Ecclesfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Mackle Emery (d. 18 May 1825) , was a country actor, and his mother, as Mrs. Emery, sen., appeared 6 July 1802 at the Haymarket as Dame Ashfield in Morton's ‘Speed the Plough,’ and subsequently played at Covent Garden. Emery was brought up for a musician, and when twelve years of age was in the orchestra at the Brighton theatre. ”

“ Unhappily, not only such as he, but many others waste time, without for a moment considering their guilt, and that they will some day be called to account for the way in which every moment of their lives has been spent.
In time Emery formed a number of acquaintances, mostly silly lads like himself, and inclined to consider him a remarkably fine fellow; several were vicious, and they, as vicious people always wish to make others like themselves, tried to induce him to accompany them to see something, as they called it, of London life. ”

“ I couldn't think what anniversary he meant.
"You'll have been here thirty-five years next week," he said. "That's a long time, Lewis...."
Thirty-five years. It took me a minute to realize what he meant. He was right. That was how long we had been here, in Martian years.
The others, those who had been born here on Mars, always used the Martian seasons. We had too, once. But lately we forgot, and counted in Earth time. It seemed more natural.
"Wait a minute, Lewis," Emery said. "I'll ride into the village with you. There's plenty of time for you to make your plane." ”

“ Wilder than the Comanches they rode, more cunning in theft than the Crows, more bloodthirsty than the Blackfeet. On the red man's triple plea for war,—horses, scalps, and wives,—the Sioux were pirates of the streams and despots of the prairie.
Mettlesome with the bow, fiery in battle, strong, brave, wild, kings of the hills and monarchs of the trails, they ruled the earth in splendid savagery. The buffalo was theirs, the beaver and the deer, and woe betide the rival that poached on their preserves. Did the poor Shoshone venture beyond the Rockies, he was flayed and burned alive. ”

“ Long into the darkness of night the boats sped on, on, past dim forests bending to the wave, past shadowy heights receding into sunset, past campfires on the hills where naked Indians walked between them and the light. ”

“ No wonder the Sioux were never still. The ozone of the Arctic was in their veins, the sweeping winds drove them, the balsamic prairie was their bed, the sky their canopy. They never shut themselves up in stuffy mud huts, as did the Mandans; they lived in tents. Unrestrained, unregenerate, there was in them the fire of the Six Nations, of King Philip and of Pontiac. Tall, handsome, finely formed, agile, revengeful, intelligent, capable,—they loved their country and they hated strangers. ”

“ In this, the feudal age of North America, every man became a captain and fought his own battles. Like knights of old, each borderer, from Ticonderoga to Wheeling and Boonsboro, sharpened his knife, primed his flintlock, and started. No martial music or gaudy banner, no drum or bugle, heralded the border foray. Silent as the red man the stark hunter issued from his wooden fort and slid among the leaves. ”

“ An instinct, a relic, an inheritance of long ago was upon them, when their ancestors roved the earth untrammelled by cities and civilisation, when the rock was man's pillow and the cave his home, when the arrow in his strong hand brought the fruits of the chase, when garments of skin clad his limbs, and God spoke to the white savage under the old Phœnician stars.
In their dreams they felt the rain and wind beat on their leather tent. Sacajawea's baby cried, Spring nodded with the rosy clarkia, screamed with Clark's crow, and tapped with Lewis's woodpecker. ”

“ Sentinel wolves lay in wait to devour the lagging cattle; Indians hovered in front and rear and ambuscade. Killed by Pawnees, plundered by Dacotahs, scalped by Sioux, compelled by Cheyennes to pay tribute for passing through their country, corralled by Blackfeet, crossing the battle-ground of hostile Snakes, still on the immigrant pressed with the same restless spirit that inundated Europe and broke up the Roman Empire. The migration of races ebbs and flows like the waves of the sea. ”

“ The horse brigades were gay with brilliant housings; a multitude of tiny bells tinkled at saddle skirt and bridle-rein, bright dresses stiff with beads adorned the trappers' Indian wives, and at the head of this barbaric pageant often sat Eloise and the stately governor, with his long white locks blowing over the cloak of Hudson's Bay blue. As such cavalcades would wind up the valley in the October sun the whole little world turned out to gaze. You would hardly have supposed there were so many Indians in the country until you saw them trooping in to witness the autumn brigade to California. ”

“ Where beautiful scenery abounds, there legends usually cluster. This is true of the Rhine, of the Scottish Highlands, of the Hudson River, and of Oregon. Already every bold peak and smiling glen of the coast and the Columbia has its legend waiting for an artist to give it setting. Like a faint perfume this whole emerald Northwest is redolent of song and story. ”

“ There were hunters in that brigade, rough as the grizzlies they hunted; hunters keen as the deer, suspicious as the elk; hunters that read like a book the language of tracks. Leaning over their horses' necks, they could discern the delicate tread of the silver fox, the pointed print of the mink, and the otter's heavy trail. With whip-stock in hand La Framboise points "A bear passed last week," " An elk yesterday," "A deer this morning." In a moment a deer tosses its antlers, sniffs the wind, then bounds with slender, nervous limbs into the thickest shade. ”

“ When he saw the wild Spokanes careering across the plain, his blood leaped as at the recognition of kindred. He longed to mount a fiery steed and ride away with them, far from books and school and gentlemen's clothes. ”

“ Far away in the dim recesses of the Oregon woods an altar was reared that Christmas night. Before a green bower lit with candles and hung with garlands stood the Jesuit Father, De Smet, among the Flatheads. A hundred lodge-fires burned, a thousand red men slept. At a signal gun the Indians rose. The midnight mass, the mystery, the swinging censers, the decorated altar, the solemn ceremonial awed the savage heart. Indian voices chanted the Kyrie Eleison and the Te Deum, Indian fingers signed the cross and took the beads. ”

“ The shores guide our canoes. The green leaves tell us when it is spring; the yellow, when to pitch our winter teepees. White men have the locomotive what need, when our own fleet feet out-travel the horse? The missionary teaches you to weave cloth. Has not the buffalo spun a robe for you? The white man tears up the soil, it becomes full of worms and weeds. He makes a garden. Are not your meadows full of camas, your rivers full of fish, your father's hillsides stocked with game? Who would obstruct the streams with bridges? Does not the beaver build bridges enough for you? ”

“ The river, foaming over its rocky bed, the boatmen blowing their long conical bugles from shore to shore, the keelboats, flat-bottoms, and arks loaded with emigrants all intent on "picking guineas from gooseberry bushes," spoke of youth, life, action. Again the boatman blew his bugle, echoes of other trumpets answered, "Farewell, farewell, fare—we-ll." Soon they were into the full sweep of the pellucid Ohio, mirroring skies and shores dressed in the livery of Robin Hood. ”

“ The fire-logs flickered in the dark old chimney, and the branching candelabra sent out an odor of perfumed wax. There was a clatter of cutlery. In peaked cap and ample apron Burris marshalled his copper-colored, curly-haired Kanakas with trenchers of venison and tureens of brown gravies. ”

“ Washington, Jefferson, the whole country impatiently watched for news of Wayne on the Ohio.
Drill, drill, drill,—keeping out a cloud of scouts that no peering Indian might discover his preparations, Wayne exercised daily now with rifle, sabre, and bayonet until no grizzly frontiersman surpassed his men at the target, no fox-hunter could leap more wildly, no swordsman more surely swing the sharp steel home. At the sight young Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, Virginians of the border and Pennsylvanians of lifetime battle, were eager for the fray. ”

“ It was the emporium of the fur-trade on the Columbia, ninety miles from the sea, a fort that, like the castles of mediaeval Europe, was at once a defence in time of danger, an oasis of civilization amid surrounding barbarism, and a capital from whence its master held baronial sway. Here for a quarter of a century Dr. John McLoughlin ruled with the sceptre of a czar the vast territory from Alaska to California and from the Rocky Mountains to the ocean. Uncounted thousands of Indians obeyed his behests, feared his displeasure. ”

“ It might have been thought that a bier was waiting in the next room and that the mourners had assembled here.
The piece of work was only half unrolled, but Orion at once saw the spot whence its crowning glory was now missing—the large emerald which, as he alone could know, was on its way to Constantinople. His theft had been discovered. How fearful, how fatal might the issue be!
"Courage, courage!" he said to himself. "Only preserve your presence of mind. What profit is life with loss of honor? Keep your eyes open; everything depends on that, Orion!" ”

“ Perform your duty and do your utmost in the future to go on as you have begun!" cried Amru; and the young man replied:
"In this bitter and yet happy interval I have become clear on many points."
"And may I ask on what?" asked the governor. "I would gladly hear."
"I have discovered, my lord," replied Orion, "that there is no such thing as happiness or unhappiness in the sense men give to the words. Life appears to each of us as we ourselves paint it. ”

“ Why do we make you chiefs, if you have no control over your young men? You are unworthy the name of chief. You, hot-headed young men, you pride yourselves on your bravery. You think no one can match you. Do not deceive yourselves.
"If the Americans begin war, war will not end until every one of you is cut off from the face of the earth. Your people have died. So have others. Dr. Whitman did not poison them. God commanded they should die. We are weak mortals. ”

“ If the missionary-brides instructed the ladies of Fort Vancouver, they, too, were taught in the lore of lustrous sables, silky sea-otter, thick brown mink, and soft black beaver. Eloise could tell them that the fiery fox was a prize in China, that the Russian would give a hundred silver rubles for the sea-otter that the Chinook slid down and speared as it slept on the shore, that the dappled bearskin would line the coach of an English noble, that the blue fox went to the czar for a royal cloak, and the silver gray to an Indian rajah. ”

“ Down the steep and ragged rocks that overhung the sea, they clambered to a Tillamook village, where lay the great whale, stranded on the shore. Nothing was left but a skeleton, for from every Indian village within travelling distance, men and women were working like bees upon the huge carcass. Then home they went, trailing over the mountains, every squaw with a load of whale blubber on her back, to be for many a month the dainty of an Indian lodge.
These Indian lodges or houses were a source of great interest to Lewis and Clark. ”

“ The Indians foresaw their approaching destruction and hung nightly along the river shore, in the thick brush under the sycamores, stealing horses and sinking boats. With tomahawk in hand, a leader among them was young Tecumseh.
"The Ohio shall be the boundary. No white man shall plant corn in Ohio!" cried the Indian.
"Keep the Ohio for a fur preserve," whispered Detroit at his back. ”

“ Dressed in hunting shirt and moccasins, his rifle on his shoulder, his tomahawk in his belt, now leading his eager followers on the trail of the red marauders, now galloping at the head of his horsemen to the relief of some beleaguered station, Clark guarded Kentucky.
No life was safe beyond the walls. Armed sentinels were ever on the watchtowers, armed guards were at the gates. And outside, Indians lay concealed, watching as only Indians can watch, nights and days, to cut off the incautious settler who might step beyond the barricades. ”

“ You must not civilize our Indians. Away! away! Your mills, your ploughs and schools and shops must not frighten our beaver."
Silence brooded over Oregon, the silence of the grave. England looked upon the great fur preserve as a waste, a desert where a few wild beasts gained a scanty living. As the fur-traders tramped the forest they knew of coal, but they never told it; they knew of marble and iron, but they kept it secret; voyageurs discovered ledges of gold, but were enjoined to silence; the Indian was not more quiescent. ”

“ From the heights at the three forks, Lewis and Clark looked out upon valleys of perennial green. Birds of beautiful plumage and thrilling song appeared on every hand. Beaver, otter, muskrat, sported in this trapper's paradise. Buffalo-clover, sunflowers and wild rye, buffalo-peas and buffalo-beans blossomed everywhere. ”

“ There was a time when Indian campfires stretched from Walla Walla to the sea, when fortifications were erected, and when Indian flint factories supplied the weapons of countless warriors. But they are gone. The first settlers found sloughs and bayous lined with burial canoes, until the dead were more than the living. No Indians knew whose bones they were, "those old, old, old people." Red children and white tumbled them out of the cedar coffins and carried away the dead men's treasures. ”