Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch - "The Adventures of Harry Revel"

Unknown - "Pages for Laughing Eyes"

Various - "The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857"

David Graham Phillips - "The Plum Tree"

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




He stole forward with noisy heart.

The cottage crouched; the sycamores behind it rustled; and the wind
that stirred the sycamores brought to him the sound of a voice.

He stopped, fingering his dirk.

Friend or enemy?

The voice was that of a man, deeply melodious without being exactly
musical, and came from beyond the cottage somewhere by the clump of
sycamores behind.

It was humming a tune, and a tune the boy knew well. Holding his
breath, and listening with his heart, the boy could distinguish the
words--

_Jesu, Lover of my Soul_.




CHAPTER XXXI


THE MAN WITH THE SWORD


I


Those familiar words, so unexpected in that strange place, smote the
boy's heart.

A thousand memories surged in on him.

His lips trembled. A very little, and he would have fallen on his
knees.

It was as though an Angel had come to him walking through the Valley
of the Shadow, to tell him all was well, and to go forward.

And forward he went with thankful heart.

The sea of turf ran right up to the wall, and broke against it. The
windows, seen close, were less windows than loop-holes, barred across.
On the sill of one was a pot of musk, newly watered, and very
fragrant. Within upon the wall shimmered a ship's cutlass, and a brace
of pistols.

The boy peered in.

A kitchen-parlour, raftered and paved with stone, formed the ground-
floor. At one end was a huge fire-place; in the opposite corner a bed,
piled high with clothes. A ladder led to a trap-door in the low
ceiling. The sun flooded into the room through the one window in the
other wall. The door on that side was half open; and behind it sat a
man.


II


He was all in black, and very neat: an Englishman, a gentleman, and a
parson, Kit would have sworn.

His back was turned. The boy could see nothing but a black coat, a
pair of solid shoulders, and a curly head.

This was not the hymn-singer to be sure. He was otherwise engaged.
There was something across his knees, and he was tending to it, and
talking as he worked.

From his actions and his words, Kit would have sworn that he was
bathing a child. For the man was talking as women talk to babies, and
some men to the women they love--that little talk, half tender, half
mocking, such nonsense, and so sweet.

Then something flashed and sparkled against the dark of the door; and
Kit saw it was no babe that lay across the man's knees, but a naked
blade.

He was furbishing it with a chamois leather, and caressing it with
words.

Now he lifted the blade on flat hands, and kissed the point
reverently.

Then he leaned forward, and peered round the half open door with
extraordinary stealth.

Comic as the action was, there was yet something terrible about it.

Kit choked with laughter and fear.

The man was half child playing peep-bo! and half spider waiting for a
fly.

That vision of the Eternal Child, which he had surprised in the eyes
of old Ding-dong sailing into action, was manifest in this man too.

Were men only children?--Yes, surely!--the good ones, at least. Only
sinners grew old. Christian never ages.

The man's head turned a trifle. There was a smile flickering about his
lips; and in the smile was something of the ogre, and something of the
boy.

It was clear that he meant to kill; equally clear that he took joy in
his purpose.

He sat down again; and as he did so held up a finger, hushing himself.

He was playing a game, unaware that he was being watched, and enjoying
it intensely.

Behind the door he sat now, blade in hand, spider-still.

Plainly he was waiting for somebody.

But for whom?--and what would happen when that somebody came?

The door opened another inch or two, and through it, Kit saw the
privateer, black on the white water.

In a flash he understood.

The man was waiting for the French.


III


The humour of the thing--this lonely swordsman lying in wait behind
the door for the crew of the privateer--seized the boy by the throat.
The laughter poured out of him headlong.

The man leapt round, dark-faced and terrible. In a twinkle he was
across the floor, wary as a panther.

The door opened.

Out he came, thrusting stealthily, his blade leading him. His flanks
were covered, himself almost unseen in the dark of the door.

Whatever else the man might be, he was a soldier born.

Then he saw the boy and halted on the threshold.

A man more aggressively English Kit thought he had never seen.

Forty or thereabouts, five feet ten high, and perfectly compact: he
wore no wig, and his hair broke in crisp grey curls all about his
head: a ruddy face, fighting jowl, and blue eyes, kindled with equal
ease to savagery or smiles.

The boy's heart leapt to those eyes, as it leapt to the first blossom
starring the black-thorn after winter's desolation. There was hope in
them, the hope of Spring.

The man smelt of roast beef and Old England.

Kit loved him at a glance. And was he a stranger?--Had he not fought
with this man, hunted with him, died with him a thousand times of old?
Had they not stood shoulder to shoulder, and back to back, in many a
desperate venture in the past that haunted him? Had he not tried him
time and again on the anvil of hard experience, always to find that he
rang true? Would he fail him now at his need, this old comrade, who
had never failed him before? No. That old sense of the familiarity of
all experience swept in on him with staggering force.

Drawn as in a dream, he stepped forward and took the other's hand.

"Friend," he said.

The man lowered his point. His eyes drank in the boy's face.

"So be it," he answered, twinkling.

The blue eyes lived in the brown ones; the hands gripped.




CHAPTER XXXII


THE BROKEN SQUARE

"My name is Caryll--Christopher Caryll."

The other nodded over him.

"Christopher Caryll, called by his mother Kit: an officer of the Sea
Service, eh?"

The boy's eyes brightened.

"Yes, sir. How did you know?"

"I remember a Kit Caryll by name in the Mediterranean in the nineties.
And I ought to know the King's uniform, seeing I was a King's officer
myself before I took orders."

"A sailor?"

"Sailor be d'd!" cried the Parson, heartily. "I'd sooner be a cod-
fish. No, sir, no: I hate the sea like I hate the French. D'you think
if the Almighty had meant me for the water, He'd have troubled to give
me that?" He thrust forth his right leg, and dwelt fondly on the calf,
contracting and relaxing it.

"But I forget my manners."

He bent over his blade with tenderest chivalry.

"Will you allow me," with a sweep, "to introduce to your ladyship a
young gentleman of the sister Service? Mr. Caryll--Lady Polly Kiss-me-
quick."

He averted the sword, and shielding his mouth, whispered
confidentially--

"The sweetest of her sex, Mr. Caryll, but that hot after the men you
wouldn't believe."

Kit threw back his head and gurgled. Only fifteen, and man enough not
to be ashamed to be a boy, he still loved make-believe. And his heart
went out to this man, who was after all a brother-boy.

"No, I wasn't a sailor. I had my company in the King's Black
Borderers," continued the Parson--"the old Blackguards, as they call
us, of whom you may have heard."

The boy's eyes flashed.

"I should think I had!" he cried. "It was a brute in the Borderers
nearly killed my Uncle Jacko in a duel--in Corsica--in '94. A chap
called Joy. He was a notorious bully--a cursing swearing fellow.
After-wards he died of drink, mother says. Uncle Jacko was her
favourite brother."

The other's face had chilled.

"And what was mother's favourite brother's name--if I may ask?"

"Gordon, sir--Jacko Gordon."

"Jacko Gordon--the Horse-Gunner!" laughed the Parson. "Ha! ha! ha!"

"Did you know him, sir?"

The Parson tossed his Polly in the air, and caught her deftly.

"Did we know him? did we not? You remember Jacko Gordon, my lady?--and
the sands of Calvi?"

"That was where the bully fought him!" cried Kit. "Ran him through the
fore-arm when he wasn't ready."

A dark breeze swept across the other's face.

"He was ready; and it was not the fore-arm," he replied with icy
chilliness. "It was the wrist; was it not, my own?" bending over his
blade.... "Yes; he had a lovely wrist--until she kissed it...." He
shrugged. "But what would you?--'Calves!' says he; and it was before
the mess-tent--' d'you call those things? yours calves?'--'And what
d'you call em yourself?' says I, mighty polite. 'Why, _cows in
calf!'_ says he, and swaggers off with a silly guffaw.

"After that there was nothing for it but the usual of course. I ran
him through the wrist. He dropped his blade....

"'D'you withdraw?' says I, she straining for his heart.

"'What I have said, I have said,' he answered, white as silver and
steady as the firmament.

"Then little man Nelson knocked up my sword--

"'That'll do, Black Cock,' says he. 'A joke's a joke; but a brave
man's death's a mighty bad joke. She's a little blood-sucker that lady
o yours.' And nobody but Nelson'd ha dared to say it."


II


The boy was staring hard.

"Did they call you Black Cock, sir? Abercromby's Black Cock?"

"That's me, sir, at your service," replied the Parson--"Joy of Battle
in the Regiment, Abercromby's Black Cock in the Army. What of it?"

"I met a man who knew you this morning."

The other's eyes leapt.

"Chap with a beak on a chestnut!--handsome young scoundrel!--
Frenchified, theatrical, bit o red riband stuck on his stomach."

"That's the man, sir."

"Well, what of him?--Quick!"

Kit repeated the tale of Egypt, as the Gentleman had told it.

The other listened with rapt interest.

"It's all true," he said, "true as the Bible."

He was pacing up and down, his hands behind him.

"There was a time in my life," he began at last "when I had--er--the
regrettable habit of--er--using foul language, as your Uncle Jacko may
have told you. Never filthy language! never that. I always swore like
a gentleman. Chucked the d's and b's and g's about a bit too merry.
Well, one day--it was in Egypt--I was carrying on a bit, when a pious
sort of ass I knew at home, who was standing by, said--'I wonder what
your mother'd think if she heard you now, Harry Joy.' So after I'd
given him some for imself, I went back to my tent and thought a bit.

"You see I'd just heard from home that poor old mother was failing. And
I couldn't help thinking--Now supposing she dies, and first thing she
hears when she gets to heaven is her boy loosing off on earth!...

"So I took an oath Samson-style, and I prayed I and I said--'Look
here, Lord, if you'll look over what's past, and help me keep a clean
tongue in future, I'll kill you a Frenchman a day for seven days....'

"So I sent a challenge into their lines. There was nothing stirring
just then, and they took the thing up very readily. The business took
place before reveille out in the desert, between the out-post lines at
a place they got to call the cock-pit. All the bloods and bucks on
both sides used to come out to see the fun. It was the regular thing--
to see Black Cock breakfast....

"Well, on the seventh morning as they were carting their chap away,
and I was wiping my sword, a swaggering great Cuirassier turned round
and shouted,

"'To-morrow we bring David to slay your Goliath!'

"'D'you hear that, Black Cock?' says Olifant, the Guardsman. 'Are you
game?'--'I'm not tired, if they ain't,' says I."

His blue eyes began to twinkle.

"Next dawn, when I got to the Cock-pit, and saw their champion, why,
he was a boy!--a boy like a girl!--one of these pretty pink and white
things, all eyes and legs and a silly smile. 'I am David,' says he.
'Then go back to Jesse,' says I, pretty short. 'I don't fight with
kids.'... And that afternoon I sent him a bottle of milk with my
compliments."

The Parson stopped his pacing, and looked the boy in the eyes.

"Next day they broke us, sir,--broke the Black Borderers in square."

"Who did?"

The Parson was breathing deep, and his eyes were smouldering.

"The Legion d'Irlande. No other regiment in the world could have got
in; and once in, no other regiment in the world but ours could have
got em out, though I say it as shouldn't."

Voice and eyes burst into thunder and flame.

"And who led em? Why, my boy-girl friend storming along on an old
white Arab, and laughing like the devil. 'Here, they come!' yells the
Colonel. _'Prepare for--Cavalree!'_ I jumped on to the big drum,
and had a squint over the men's heads. Lor! I can see the dust of em
now--like a mighty great wave sweeping across the desert, and the boy
on the white Arab coming along like an earthquake six lengths before
the lot. It sent me screaming mad to see em. 'Come on, ye dirty black-
a-mouths!' I screeched. 'Irish stew for the rebel brigade!' 'Hullo,
Black Cock!' he cried, and I saw him grinning through the dust. 'I'm
going to cut your comb.' And he took the old horse by head, and rammed
him at us--slap-bang, like riding at a bull-finch; and the whole
blanky lot after him."

The Parson was stamping up and down, roaring out his story, his eyes
laughing and battle-lusty.

"Such a hell of a hugger-mugger you never saw! They rolled in on us
like the sea. Rough and tumble every man for himself--stab somebody--
don't matter who!" He paused to pant. "It was the day of my life. The
Colonel was down; the Majors were dead; the Captains heaven-knows-
where. Our old Raven banner, that we took from their Black Horse at
Dettingen was in the dust, the Junior Ensign tumbled up in it all
anyhow. 'Got it, Miss B.?' I cried. 'Here!' squeals the poor little
chap. 'Heave her up!' Then a horse jumped on him, and put him out of
his pain.

"I got the old rag up somehow. 'Round this, men!' I yelled, jumping on
the Colonel's dead charger. Get round, ye blanky blanks!' Then I saw
this boy-girl chap grinning above me. 'Slash away!' I roared. 'Here's
one for yourself!' and I jabbed the staff in his mug. 'No,' says he,
as jolly as you like, 'I don't fight with poultry!' And dam-my-soul!--
if he don't sneak his hand under the rag and tweak my nose!--this
nose!" the Parson squeaked, tapping it--"this nose upon this face!
this nose I'm talking to you out o now! And he jumped that wallopin
old white out the way he came. 'Come along, children,' says he.
'You've had quite enough for one meal.' And away he goes, laughing
like the devil, his blessed pathriots after him."




CHAPTER XXXIII


FIGHTING FITZ

The tempest in the Parson's wrathful blue eyes subsided.

"Yes, that was my first real meeting with Fighting Fitz."

"Was that Fighting Fitz?" cried the boy, ablaze.

He had heard, as who had not, of the brilliant young Irishman whom
Napoleon had called the first light cavalryman in Europe after
Marengo.

"That was Fighting Fitz of Green Brigade fame," said the Parson,
mopping his forehead. "We knew him as the Boy Sabreur in Egypt. Even
then it was said that no woman could resist him, and no man stand up
against him. He went out with young de Beauharnais, Boney's step-son,
and ran him through the body; and he carried on an intrigue with ...
but there! there!... When he was First Consul, Boney decorated him
before the Army, and disgraced him within the year. They said the
little Corporal began to be jealous: the men worshipped Fitz....
Anyway I know it'll be the regret of my life that I missed my chance
when I first met him." He sighed profoundly.

"But you met him again, didn't you, sir?"

The Parson nodded.

"Last month. I was up on Beachy Head with the spy-glass, when I saw
the _Kite_ beating up for Cuckmere Haven. So I ran down to
Birling Gap thinking--thinking--" he coughed--"she might a--a--be
bringing me a little present from France--a bit o bacca, or dallop o
tea, or what not, ye know.... What ye say?"

He turned on the boy savagely.

"I didn't say anything," replied Kit, astonished.

The Parson scowled.

"Well, as I swung round into the cutting I nearly ran into a chap on a
chestnut--quite the Corinthian, with a bit o red riband stuck on his
stomach. I brought up sharp on my heels.

"'Well, my fine fellow,' thinks I, 'what you posing here for?--and
why's that mare in a lather?' But before I could say anything--

"'Hullo!' says he, 'I think I should know that nose.'

"'What ye mean?' says I, pretty sharp.

"'Why,' says he, 'I once had the pleasure of pulling it.'

"Then he laughed. And directly he laughed of course I knew.

"I put my hand upon my sword.

"'And what you doing attitudinising in _my_ land, my lord?' says
I, the bristles at the back of my neck rising. 'Play-acting your
Caesar about to conquer Britain by the look o you!'

"'Why, your Majesty,' says he, 'I'm out for a ride on _your_
land.'

"I gave him a look.

"'Shall we adjourn to the beach?' says I.

"'Charmed,' says he--'if I'm not too young.'

"And he cocked his leg over the mare's withers, and slid down. 'Now,
old lady!' says he. 'You know your own way.' And he gave her a spank;
and off she went with a make-believe kick at him, up the hillside and
out of sight.

"We went down to the beach, and took our coats off."

The Parson's eyes began to twinkle.

"Yes: the bully had met his match for once--and a bit more. After a
very few minutes that was clear. 'How d'you feel?' says he. 'Why,
right as rain,' I panted. But I knew he had me. And I knew by the look
in his eyes he knew it too. 'True 'tis pity,' says he, running his eye
over my shirt.

"'Get on with it,' I says, pretty gruff. 'I must play pussy-cat with my
fat mouse,' says he. 'Where'd you like it?' and I must say he was
mighty courteous about it. Well, I was just going to tell him, when
somebody banged me over the head from behind.... I fell on my face, and
a mountain seemed to fall on top of me. 'Shall I knife him, my lord?'
comes a voice like a girl's. Then--'Get off, you dung! or I'll make
muck o you!'--'I ony thought, my lord--'--'Think, swine! _you_
think!' And smack--smack goes his sword! The mountain got off. The
lord was kneeling by my side.

"'I hope to the deuce you're not hurt, sir,' says he, very concerned.

"I got to my knees.

"'Thanks to you, my lord, I'm not.'

"'It was Big Belly there,' says he, helping me to my feet.... 'These
fellows don't understand our ways.'

"'That's the worst of dabbling in dirty water,' says I.

"'Ah, it's not the water--it's the fish you meet in it I mind,' he
says.

"He picked up my sword, and gave it me.

"I was trying to walk.

"'Here, take my arm,' says he. 'You've had about two ton o bad man
upset on top o you.' And he walked me up and down that beach, tender
as a lady--pon my soul he did.

"Just then I heard a holloa.

"'No time to cut to waste, my lord,' sings out someone. 'We've a clear
run now, but only knows how long we shall have.'

"Then I saw the _Kite's_ long-boat beached close by, and Diamond
and a couple of his chaps standing by.

"The lord took me to a rock, and made me sit down.

"I wonder if you'll excuse me,' says he. 'I'm due to dine with little
Boney tonight at eight sharp, and I must be up to time. Truth is I'm
not in the Little Corporal's best books just now. He caught Josephine
and me amusing ourselves in the rose-walk at Malmaison last week; and
he wasn't best pleased.'

"And he took off his hat in his theatrical Frenchified way and went
down to the boat.

"I sat on the rock, brushing my knees.

"Diamond shoved her off.

"'Good-day, Parson,' says he, grinning.

"'So this is your smuggling, Diamond!' I roared, shaking my fist at
him.

"'Yes,' says he, 'I'm about as good a smuggler as you are Parson.'

"That made me mad.

"'I'm an Englishman anyway and not a blanky traitor!' I roared.
'Here's something to remember me by!' and I snatched the pistol out o
my tail-pocket, and snapped it at him.

"The ball went through the full of his shirt.

"'Ah,' says he, mighty nasty, 'I'll drop a return card on you one o'
these days, Mr. Clergyman. And don't you forget it.'

"Then the lord stood up and waved.

"'Thank you for a very pleasant afternoon, Mr. Joy,' he called. 'May
I say _au revoir?_'

"'The same to you, my lord,' I answered. 'And the sooner the better.'

"And that's the last I saw of him.... And now what I want to know is
_where is he?_--for I'm after him."




CHAPTER XXXIV


THE FACE ON THE WALL

"It's a long story," said Kit.

The Parson took him by the arm, and led the way into the kitchen.

It was more like a guard-room than a parlour. Clearly no woman reigned
here. All was wood, or stone, or steel, clean as a ship, and as
comfortless. Arms on the wall; iron-barred windows; no carpets, no
curtains, no fal-lals.

The only soft thing in the room was the bed in the corner, piled high
with clothes; the only ornament a print above the chimney-piece.

"It looks more like a fort than a kitchen," whispered Kit, awed.

"Ah, thereby hangs a tale!" replied the Parson.

He drew up before the face on the wall.

"You know who that is?" he asked, one hand on the boy's shoulder.

Kit laughed.

It was the face that had hung in old Ding-dong's cabin, that was
hanging at that hour in thousands of English homes.

"A Colonel of Marines," continued the Parson--"Nelson by name."
[Footnote: In 1795 Nelson was appointed Honorary Colonel of Marines in
recognition of his services in the Mediterranean.]

"Indeed," said the boy ironically. "I'd a notion he was a sailor."

The other made no answer. Indeed he did not hear. He stood before the
print, worshipping it.

"Every night and morning I say my prayers before that picture," he
continued quietly, all the laughter out of his voice. And there was
something profoundly stirring about the solemnity with which he added,

"If it's God's will that our country shall be saved, there is the man
will save it!"

The boy looked up at him.

"Sir," he said, "Nelson will save the country, if we can save Nelson."




IV

THE GARRISON




CHAPTER XXXV


THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER

Kit told his tale.

The Parson listened without a word, his hands folded, and face
inscrutable.

His silence chilled the boy.

"D'you believe me, sir?" he flashed out at last.

"Believe the boy!" cried the Parson fiercely. "Why, I _saw_ the
fight. I was dancing mad at the foot of the cliff. Great heavens,
sir!--didn't you hear me holloa? I should have thought they'd have
heard me in France. Why, for the first and last time in my life, I
wanted to be a sailor myself!"

Kit finished with a free heart, withholding nothing: the death of
Black Diamond; the fight with the privateers; the end of old Ding-
dong; and the scene with the Gentleman on the cliff.

The Parson drank in the lad's words. His eyes were grave; his brow
furrowed. So stern he seemed, his face so smileless under those
laughing curls, that Kit hardly recognised in him the boy-hearted
swordsman of a few minutes since.

The story finished, he sat long unmoving; his mouth set, and eyes
inward.

Then he began to pace up and down again.

"My prayer is heard," he said at last, and stopping turned to the boy.

"Kit Caryll, d'you know what I am?"

"You look like a--kind of a clergyman, sir."

"And that is what I am," replied the other a touch defiantly. "I am in
Holy Orders in my own humble way."

He began pacing once more.

"We all have our weaknesses, sir.... My mother was mine.... She should
have been the mother of saints rather than of a--' bully swordsman!'--
I think that was the phrase?" cocking a blue eye at the boy.

"After Egypt I came home to find her dying.... Well, she entreated me
to forsake my profession and become a Christian--'for my sake, Harry,'
says she.... I argued it with her. I told her it was good work, God's
work, to kill the French. I said I looked on myself as a Crusader
fighting the Moors, as indeed I did. But she wouldn't hear of it. She
said the Moors were black and the French white, and that made just all
the difference.... And she begged so hard--and--and--"

His back was to the boy, and he was looking out of the window.

It was some time before he went on.

"I couldn't say her no then. So I told her I'd do as she wished and
take Orders. But I made one condition. 'I won't go to the French; but
if the French come to me, then,' I said, 'surely, mother, I may up and
smite!' She gave me that. You see, she never thought they would come."

He cleared his throat.

"Well, the Bishop wouldn't give me a cure, because I didn't know the
Catechism. So I kicked my heels till the Peace was broken, and things
looked up a bit. And when little Boney began to get his Army of
England together on the cliffs yonder, I cheered up, and came and
pitched my tent on the nearest spot I could find to be ready. And here
I've been ever since.

"On calm summer evenings I've seen the cliffs of France from Beachy
Head, and with the spy-glass I've thought I've made out the tents of
Lannes' camp. That's been bread and meat to me these two years past.
Then a month ago I had that little affair with my lord. That knocked
ten years off my life. I've been in training ever since. Today I think
I'm a better man than I've ever been." He inhaled a deep breath,
swelling his chest.

"And this morning, when I woke and saw that ship hove-to off the Wish,
and old Piper told me she was a Frenchman, I just went down on my two
knees and thanked God for His great mercies."

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