M. Pearson Thomson - "Denmark"

John Wood Campbell - "Invaders from the Infinite"

Elinor Glyn - "Man and Maid"

Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated - "Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, From Paris to Rome:"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Gentleman

A >> Alfred Ollivant >> The Gentleman




The Parson leaned out, and smote at the man's shaven skull with the
butt-end of his pistol.

"Ain't I done right, sir?" squeaked the little man, dodging back.

"You've sold us!" cursed the Parson, and he was white even in the
moon.

"Hush, sir! hush!" cried Kit. "For goodness' sake, hush! They'll hear
you."

"Hullo! hullo! what's all this?" came a voice from across the sward.

"Excuse me, sir!" whispered Knapp, unabashed. "I'd best be steppin it.
Here are your papers, sir." He flung a packet through the window and
flashed away.

The Gentleman sat on the wall in the moonlight.

"So your chap's back," he called in his friendly voice.

"Yes, sir," replied the Parson harshly, "and the soldiers on his heels
two thousand strong, with a couple of Horse Batteries, and a company
of Sappers to rig up a gallows for conceited young coxcombs who pose
on walls in the moonlight."

"Very glad to see any friends of yours any time," replied the
Gentleman. "But unless they come soon I'm afraid we shall miss. I'm
off at dawn. But I'll see you again before going. Good-night."

He sauntered away.

The Parson turned, grinding his teeth.

Then he saw the boy's face, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Turn in, boy, and try to get a snooze. What tomorrow brings Heaven
knows, but we do know we shall want all our strength to meet it."




CHAPTER LXII


THE PARSON MUSES

The Parson opened his packet.

It contained a batch of newspapers dropped for him daily at Lewes by
the coach, and not called for since last Saturday.

Ah, here we are!

_The Times, Monday, August l9_--that was the day before
yesterday.

_Lord Nelson is arrived at Portsmouth._

Then the Gentleman was right!

He was here, the man his country had believed barring the passage of
the Combined Squadron Vigo way.

Why had the watch-dog left his post?

_We may infer from the circumstance of his Lordship's coming home,
that information had reached him of the Combined Squadron having got
into Ferrol._

He dared say they had. Where was the man should have stopped them?

_The Times, August 20._

_Lord Nelson arrived at his seat at Merton in Surrey
yesterday...._

O, the Gentleman! the Gentleman! It was all true then!...

_and will most probably attend at the Admiralty this day_.

Probably attend!

And this was Nelson! his Nelson!

_Victory, Spithead, August 18, 1805.

The Victory, with the fleet under my command, left Gibraltar twenty-
seven days ago....

Nelson and Bronte_.

That's right. Do the thing thoroughly if you're going to do it at all.
Come home yourself, and bring your fleet with you. It might get in the
way of the Combined Squadron if it stopped off Cadiz. Pity to be rude,
you know!

_As soon as Lord Nelson's flag was descried at Spithead, the
ramparts, and every place which could command a view of the entrance
of the harbour, were crowded with spectators. As he approached the
shore, he was saluted with loud and reiterated huzzas, as enthusiastic
and sincere as if he had returned crowned with a third great naval
victory_.

That third great victory, where was it now?

Poor little chap! poor little Nelson!

And what was this? The _Moniteur_, _Paris_, _August
12_. Boo-woo-woo.... Bob Calder's battle. [Footnote: Sir Robert
Calder had fought an indecisive action with Villeneuve in July.] Bob
Calder ought to be shot. Had em and then wouldn't hammer em. Call
emselves sailors!

_Vice-Admiral Calder stood off with thirteen ships, and left the
Combined Squadron masters of the sea_.

Masters of the Sea!

O good God! good God!

And what was Nelson doing?

_The sudden arrival of Lord Nelson in the Metropolis, after so long
an absence, and such arduous service, is a circumstance peculiarly
interesting to the inhabitants, who were yesterday waiting in
thousands about the Admiralty to give him a truly British reception.
Many, of course, were disappointed in their object, and can only wait
for another opportunity; but that, we have reason to believe, will
occur this evening, as it is reported in the Naval circles, that his
Lordship intends to pay a visit to Vauxhall Gardens, in honour of the
birthday of the Duke of Clarence. The report is, in many points of
view, entitled to consideration, for there is no other Gala in the
season which affords such an infinite degree of nautical
attraction._

Gala with a big G!

_No other Gala in the season which affords such an infinite degree
of nautical attraction._

Poor England! poor Nelson!




IV

THE GENTLEMAN'S LAST CARD




CHAPTER LXIII


NELSON'S TOPSAILS

Kit awoke with a start.

The dormer made a patch of diamond light in the dead of the wall, and
the chill of dawn sharpened the air.

Blob was bending over him.

"Nelson's a-comin," he announced, much as he might have said breakfast
was in.

Kit looked up into the round pink face, fresh as a daisy, and dewy-
eyed above him.

"No!" he cried, and started to his elbow.

"He is though, lad," said the Parson at the window, very quiet.

Kit was beside him in a minute.

The mattress was down, and the Parson, leaning out into the blue, both
hands on the sill, munched his thoughts.

"There's his tops'ls," said he, nodding east to where far across the
waters a glimmer as of an iceberg hung in the dawn. "Take the glass
and have a peep at her."

Mists still swathed the waters. Through them the sun peered ghostly,
twinkling on the intripping tide beyond the shingle-bank.

And--there again! far away, poised between sky and sea, that glimmer
of pearls.

It was some tall ship standing across the bay, the sun making glory on
her royals.

"Make her out?"

"Yes, sir. She's a frigate right enough--can't be anything else with
that height of canvas."

For in those dark days there was little business on the narrow seas
other than the business of war. For weeks together the Channel waters
were virgin of merchant-men. Trading bottoms dared not venture.
Majestic three-deckers and tall frigates paced the seas alone. Anon a
privateer swooped. Then a black smuggler scuttled from shore to shore
between twilights. Rarely a vast convoy, herded like sheep, drove by,
the dogs of war barking at the laggards. For the rest naked waters,
ship-forsaken.

"It's the _Medusa_" said the Parson deliberately. "How soon'll
she be off here, think you, sailor-boy?"

"I hardly know, sir. With this breeze I should think she might be
abreast of us in two hours, and round the Head in four."

"And into the trap in five," mused the Parson.

"And Nelson bandaged, his back to the wall, facing a French firing
party--all at about six o'clock of a sweet summer evening, August
22nd, the year of Our Lord, 1805."

He began to whistle meditatively.

The fine head, a-ripple with curls, was outlined against the sky. The
face was keener than a few days back; the jolly laughing look was
there no more. The blue eyes were touched to steel; and nose and jowl
thrust forth with ominous grimness. It was the face of the determined
fighter, hard-set and terrible.

He leaned out into the morning, whistling quietly, as fair a mark as
any sharp-shooter on the knoll might wish, so Kit suddenly recalled,
and plucked at him.

The other's arm was iron against him. The Parson made no move, seeming
neither to feel, nor understand. A man of marble, he dwelt in the
mind; brooding on that glimmer of pearls in the east.

Yet after a minute, as though the message had taken just that time to
reach his remote brain, he answered the boy's thought.

"That's all right, Kit," he said, deliberate as in a dream. "The
Gentleman has changed his dispositions. He's withdrawn from the knoll.
Where the Gang are I don't know, but he has got the main of his
Grenadiers on the landside still."

Kit peeped out of the Downs-ward window.

The old picquet on the plain, the old cordon of pacing Grenadiers, the
old camp-fire with the drifting smoke and arms piled beside it; and
further North, from beneath a thorn, the flash of a bayonet told of an
outlying sentry posted there to watch for the relieving force no
doubt.

Sick at heart, the lad turned and looked out over the Parson's
shoulder.

On his right front humped the knoll, an islet set in a sea of turf,
now only tenanted by dark sycamores, ruffling it in the dawn-wind.

Beneath him the greensward ran away to the shingle-bank. Beyond the
crest of it, the mast of the lugger pricked up black against the
sparkling water.

There was neither stir nor sound, save for the ripple of the tide, and
overhead the eternal chirp of the sparrows, careless that history was
being made about them.

All was still, all deserted.

As he looked, the lad's mind flamed to a thought.

"I say!" he whispered, clutching the Parson's arm. "What about the
lugger?"

"Well! what about the lugger?"

"Rush her now! Here's our chance!"

The Parson turned calm eyes upon the other's splendid ones.

"Aye, lad, aye," he said, with the crushing calm a man wields so
mightily. "But give the Gentleman his due, he's not quite such a fool
as you'd make him out. He knows our aim as well as he knows his own.
We've got to get to Nelson. There's only one way left--the lugger. If
he's left that way open it's as plain as the nose on your face it's
because he wants us to take it."

Ugh, these men! the boy worshipped the man's courage and scorned his
caution. He throbbed for the relief of action. Only let him be doing!
anything, anything in the world was better than standing here to watch
Nelson sweep doom-wards.

"And suppose," he flashed, "suppose the Gentleman makes away in his
lugger now! what shall we do? Twiddle our thumbs and whistle, till the
soldiers come, I suppose! And then," with the crude irony of fifteen,
"then perhaps, if we're very brave, and the Gentleman has got
_well_ away to sea, we'll take a little stroll with a strong
escort to the top of Beachy Head to see Nelson strung up to his own
yard-arm!"

The boy's fiery insults left the other cold.

"You're young, my boy, offensively young," he said. "A bad fault, but
one you may hope to grow out of. One thing I'm sure of. You do your
friend a great injustice. He won't leave that despatch-bag in our
hands till he's forced to at the point of the steel."

"But what can we _do_?" blazed the boy--"do, do, do! There's
Nelson!" with flashing forefinger. "Here are we. He won't come to us.
We _must_ get to him. There's only one way--the lugger. It may be
a poor chance, still if it's the only one! O, sir, sir! surely it's
better to die attempting something, than stand and _rot_ to death
here!"

The words poured forth in a white-hot torrent, shaking him.

Anybody in the world but the practical Englishman would have been
moved.

He only grunted.

"I wish I knew what was going on behind that shingle-bank," he
grumbled, half to himself.

The boy's soul quenched, only to flame forth again.

"I'll be your eyes, sir!"

The Parson shook a dubious head.

"Oh let me! O do! sir! sir!"

He was hopping, trembling at the other's side.

The Parson with his slow and chewing mind was digesting the situation.

Beneath his calm, he was mad to know what was going on behind the
shingle-bank. If he went himself, who would be left in garrison?--the
old story.

Yet if he sent Kit?

Twice already he had let the boy go forth alone, and each time had
barely plucked him from the jaws of death. Could he send him forth a
third time to face what God should send?

Could he?

He locked his jaws.

Duty, duty, duty! a hard mistress for those who serve her, but the
only one for an Englishman.

His mind made up, true man that he was, he wasted no time in excusing
himself to himself or to others.

Somewhat grey about the jaws, he swung about.

"Very well," shortly. "Just a peep--no more, mind!"




CHAPTER LXIV


RUMBLINGS OF THUNDER

The boy slid down the ladder into the gloom of the kitchen.

There was no familiar silver head at its wonted place of watch by the
loop-hole.

"Piper!"

"Sir!"

The old foretop-man was sitting beside the trapdoor, peering down into
the blackness of the cellar, and listening intently.

"That you, Master Kit? Would you step this way, sir? There keeps on a
kind of a rumbling like in the drain--a'most as though the gentlemen
be running a cargo. I ca'ant justly make it out."

The boy came to his side and listened. True, there was a muffled noise
of rolling in the drain, and dull banging against the door. Well, they
might bang till they were blue: they would make as much impression on
that door as the breeze on Beachy Head.

The old man looked up and saw the lad beside him in shirt-sleeves.

"Hullo, sir! what's forrad then?"

"I'm going to take a little trot over to the shingle-bank to have a
look round," said the boy, shivering. "I want you to stand by the door
to let me out and in."

The old man rolled up his sleeves, snatched his cutlass from the
corner, whetted it with the easy grace of a bird whetting its beak,
and spat on his hands.

"Then it's stand by to repel boarders! Rithe away, sir, when you are."

The Parson peered down.

"All's quiet," he whispered. "Ready, Kit?"

"Yes, sir."

The boy stood up pale in the gloom.

"Then ease those bolts away. Gently, Piper!"

The old man opened quietly.

A sweet wind stole in, and with it a flood of light.

Kit peeped out.

How naked it looked, how terrible!

"One moment."

He bent, untied his shoe-lace, and tied it up again.

Upstairs it had seemed such an easy thing to dare this deed, so full
of the poetry and romance of war. Down here, face to face with the
bare fact, it was a different matter. A plank, as it were, had been
thrust out from solid earth over Eternity; it was his to walk that
plank; and he didn't like the job.

Piper held the door, waiting respectfully. The old man's sleeves were
rolled to the arm-pit. On one hairy fore-arm a dancing-girl was
tattooed, record of the days, now forty years since, before, in his
own simple phrase, he had larned Christ.

He knew no fear himself: for he knew that he was impregnable. But his
heart went out to this slip of a lad, who had to face Eternity alone,
and found it terrible.

The twilight of love, always in all faces the same, which comes when
at a call the Christ rises from the deeps of the heart, darkened his
eyes.

He gave a shy little cough.

"There's one bower-anchor'll weather any storm, by your leave, sir,"
he said, the sailor and the Christian quaintly commingled.

The boy felt the other's strength flow into his.

"I know," he panted, and plunged.




CHAPTER LXV


THE DOINGS IN THE CREEK


I


As he ran he seemed to himself to be a body of lead borne on watery
dream-legs.

In the sally of yesterday at least he had Knapp with him. Now he was
alone. And to dare alone is to be revealed to yourself, naked as you
are.

A visible danger would have strengthened him. It was the horror of he-
knew-not-what coming from he-knew-not-where that made his heart
hammer.

The boy's body screamed to go back. His will thrust it forward. The
shock and struggle of the two charged him as with electricity. A
touch, he felt, and he might go off in a flash of lightning.

As he held on, and nothing happened, mind began to ride body more
masterfully. The flesh, beaten, gave and gave; till in despair,
abandoning its backward pull, it threw forward into the work.

What was death? was it what the parsons seemed to think--a foreign
land, millions of miles away, with an old man in a temper waiting
somewhere in the middle to be nasty to him?

Heaven and earth, this world and the next! Were there indeed two? a
great gulf between them. Or were both one and everlasting? Was he,
believing himself in Time, dwelling in Eternity now? Was he immortal
now?

His heart answered, _Now or never_.

What then to fear?

The thought whirled him forward.

The grass felt goodly beneath his feet. The sun, still pale in mist,
blessed him. A fresh wind flowed about him, flustering hair and shirt.
His heart eased.

After all his rear was fairly safe, and his flank unthreatened. As to
his front--well, he had his eyes and his dirk.

Gripping himself together, every hair alert, he ran.

He was nearly across the sward now. Tall grass-blades pricked sparsely
through the sand. The shingle-bank, roan against the sparkle of the
sea, surged before him, and behind it--what?

He was living in his eyes.

The knoll lay now to his right rear. Behind it, across the creek, rose
the Wish; and on the crest a Grenadier gazing seawards.

Opposite the little hill, standing on the bank somewhere just above
the entrance to the sluice, stood the Gentleman.


II


Kit dropped to his hands and knees.

The other had not seen him: for he was standing, back turned, and a
short black-snouted pistol in the hand behind him; directing
operations in the creek.

What did it all mean? what was that banging and business in the creek?

It was to find this out that he had come.

A sound close at hand drew his mind to his ears.

The crest of the shingle-bank was some twenty yards away. From the
reverse slope came the crunch and scream of disturbed pebbles.

Somebody was scrambling up the bank towards him, the pebbles pouring
noisily away beneath his feet.

What to do?--turn and bolt? He could be back across the grass before
the slow-foot Frenchman had sworn himself to the crest. Lie there out
in the open, to be made prisoner, or potted at thirty yards?

No, no, no! To retreat was shame: to stay death. But one course
remained--the riskiest, which, as he had heard the Parson say, in a
tight place is often the safest. That course was forward. Take the man
unawares as he crested the rise; dirk him; one swift glimpse at the
lugger and the doings in the creek; and then pelting home before the
enemy had realised the situation and begun to shout.

"_Francois! Francois!_" came an irritable voice.

The climber stopped.

"_Qu'as-tu donc, mon Caporal?_"

"_Nom d'un chien!_" snapped the other. "_Faut il me faire
matelot? Aidez moi un peu avec ces satanees cordes!_"

The climber slithered down on his heels, a cataract of shingle
streaming behind him.

Swift to seize his chance, Kit rushed the crest, the crash of the
Frenchman's retreat drowning his approach.

There, flat on his face, he peeped.

Beneath him, on the run of the shingle, lay the lugger. Her jib was
flapping; the mainsail set for the hoisting; every stick and stay in
place. Half a dozen burly Grenadiers, black-muzzled with a week's
beard, were busy about her, stowing their kits, laughing and
chattering.

A sprightly little Corporal, balancing on the stern, was spitting
forth orders.

The foreign language, there on his native shore, made a discord in the
boy's heart.

"_Quand partirons-nous?_" asked Francois, wading down the
shingle, pack on back.

"_Aussitot que tout sera pret la-bas,_" answered the corporal,
casting a glance over his shoulder. "_Bah! ces gueux d'Anglais!
Monsieur le General en a par dessus les yeux._"

Kit followed the man's eyes.


III


A track of feet led from the lugger to the creek across the wet sand.
Along it a tail of smugglers were trundling barrels gingerly. At the
entrance to the sluice others were hoisting and heaving. Above them
stood that slight figure against the sky-line, the ominous pistol
lurking behind him.

And it was clear the ruffians were smouldering to mutiny. Their heads
were over their shoulders as they worked, and their eyes on the
lugger. The soldiers were coming! they felt the halter tightening
round their necks; and they were mad to be away.

Only one man in the world could have held them there at all, Kit felt,
and he had all his work cut out. That slight figure against the sky-
line, so calm, so terrible, seemed compact of power.

Kit had seen his friend in many moods; now he saw him in another. And
the boy thought he loved him in this last role best, because in it he
feared him most. This was not the man of poetry, charming as April,
gay-hearted as a boy; this was the remorseless leader, iron for his
cause, brutal, if you will, as a man who deals with brutes must be.

There was a sultry silence--the silence and horror before the storm
breaks. Kit felt it and was appalled. He could almost hear the flames
of mutiny roaring in those dull and darkened hearts.

For one moment the boy forgot himself and his cause. He was a play-
goer, watching a drama. This man was the hero, valiant, lonely, a
miracle of strength. The boy felt for him a passionate sympathy. Could
he hold them?--Would they break?

Even as he watched, a man shot out of the ruck and away, scampering
furiously with the shrugged shoulders and ducked head of one expecting
a blow.

It came sure as fate, and as deliberate.

Out shot the Gentleman's pistol hand.

A crack, a stab of flame, and the man was flopping on the sand like a
landed fish.

As the Gentleman fired, another from below stormed up the bank at him.
A flash of lightning darted at him, and struck him in the chest. The
fellow collapsed in a heap.

The boy had half risen to his elbow.

"Well done!" he cried with blazing enthusiasm. Then he remembered
where he was, and dropped.

No man had heard. The Grenadiers like himself were busy watching the
doings in the creek. A murmur of applause rose from among them.

"_Bravo, Monsieur le General! Hein! Canaille_!"

In the creek all was quiet again now. The flame of mutiny was
quenched; the Gang had resumed their work; and the Gentleman was
wiping his blade upon his sleeve.




CHAPTER LXVI


BUGLES


I


In the loft the Parson was patting the shoulder of the lad now panting
beside him.

"Another notch to the Navy," he said.... "What news, boy?"

Kit told of the lugger, ready to sail; of the business of the barrels
in the creek; of the rumbling in the drain.

The Parson listened with nodding head.

"I feel like a mouse that knows it's going to have a cat jump on its
back, but don't know quite when or just how," he muttered.

"Meantime there's Nelson, sir!" cried the boy, great-eyed and anxious.

"I know, my boy, I know. But while there's the lugger, there's hope."

He leaned out of the window. A sentry was now on the shingle-bank; and
he could see the tall-plumed bearskins of the Grenadiers busy about
the lugger.

The boy took up the telescope.

The mists were lifting, and the sun shone white upon the water. He
could see the frigate, faint indeed and far, stately-pacing towards
her doom; he could see the mast of the lugger, Grenadier-guarded, and
those leagues of shining waste between the two.

Where was help?

An awful darkness drowned his heart.

He shut the telescope with a snap.

"We're beat," he sobbed.

The other gripped his arm.

"If we're beat, England's beat. If England's beat, the Devil's won,
and the world's lost--which is absurd."

The man's stern enthusiasm fired the boy afresh.

"If you'll tell me what to do I'll do it," he said a little
tremulously. "But I don't see the way."

"There is a way, Kit. There must be. And we shall find it."

The man was indomitable. There seemed no ghost of a chance; still no
shadow of despair clouded that clear spirit. As the sea of
difficulties rose about him, his soul rose to meet it on triumphant
wings.

Yet the problem before him seemed insoluble.

Nelson there: they here: one boat between, and that boat guarded by
the pick of the Army of England.

He turned those good blue eyes of his upon the boy with a drolling
baffled look.

"How's it to be done?--what says the Commodore?"

The light had fled from the boy's face. Pale and still, he looked like
a young saint about to be martyred.

"There's only one way I can think of, sir."

"What's that?"

The lad lifted the eyes of a woman.

"Pray."

A darkness drove across the Parson's face.

"You pray," he growled. "I'll sharpen my sword."

Turning to the corner he bowed to Polly shining among the cobwebs.

"A sweet morning, my lady," he cried. "And promise of a fair day's
work."

The boy turned his face to the wall.


II


"Mr. Joy, sir!"

"Well, Piper."

"There's a man on a horse."

"Where?"

"Rithe away oop a-top o th' hill over Willingdon--on the old drove-
road from Lewes."

The Parson sprang to his feet.

"Sharp work!" he said with a grin at Kit's back.

"Well done you, boy!"

Kit leapt to the window.

"Theer!" said Blob, pointing.

Far away on the rim of the world stood a tiny horseman.

What was he, that little speck of blackness on the horse without
legs?--ploughboy or dragoon?--alone or the leader of a troop?

"Wave!" cried the Parson at his elbow.

Sobbing and frantic, the lad fluttered his handkerchief.

As though in answer a bugle-call rang echoing down to them.

"The soldiers!" gasped Kit, his knees fainting beneath him. "O, thank
God!"

Close at hand another bugle rang out merrily.

"Nipper Knapp!" cried Piper. "Butter my wig, if it ain't!"

A shoal of silver minnows flashed and twinkled above the crest.

"Bayonets, by God!" roared the Parson. "Here they come, the little
darlings!" as a black trickle of figures poured over the crest.

Others too had seen and heard.

A shot rang out in the stillness: the Grenadier under the thorn came
back on his picquet at the double. The shot was answered ironically
from the hill-side by the English Last Post. Here in the dawn France
and England challenged each other tauntingly.

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