Mary Robinson - "Beaux and Belles of England"

Bernard Mandeville - "An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War"

Hippolyte A. Taine - "The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3"

William Tyler Olcott - "A Field Book of the Stars"

Editorial
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 Life of Mansie Wauch

D >> David Macbeth Moir >> The Life of Mansie Wauch




I counted and counted, but the dread day at length came and I was
summoned. All the live-long afternoon, when ca'ing the needle upon the
board, I tried to whistle Jenny Nettles, Neil Gow, and other funny tunes,
and whiles crooned to myself between hands; but my consternation was
visible, and all would not do.

It was in November; and the cold glimmering sun sank behind the
Pentlands. The trees had been shorn of their frail leaves, and the misty
night was closing fast in upon the dull and short day; but the candles
glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing
about with his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out
behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about
my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of
spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to
the session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me
his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock,
and I wrapped a napkin round the dog-head, for it was raining. Not being
well acquaint with guns, I kept the muzzle aye away from me; as it is
every man's duty not to throw his precious life into jeopardy.

A furm was set before the session-house fire, which bleezed brightly, nor
had I any thought that such an unearthly place could have been made to
look half so comfortable either by coal or candle; so my spirits rose up
as if a weight had been taken off them, and I wondered, in my bravery,
that a man like me could be afraid of anything. Nobody was there but a
touzy, ragged, halflins callant of thirteen, (for I speired his age,)
with a desperate dirty face, and long carroty hair, tearing a speldrin
with his teeth, which looked long and sharp enough, and throwing the skin
and lugs into the fire.

We sat for mostly an hour together, cracking the best way we could in
such a place; nor was anybody more likely to cast up. The night was now
pitmirk; the wind soughed amid the head-stones and railings of the
gentry, (for we must all die,) and the black corbies in the steeple-holes
cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. All at once we heard a lonesome
sound; and my heart began to play pit-pat--my skin grew all rough, like a
pouked chicken--and I felt as if I did not know what was the matter with
me. It was only a false alarm, however, being the warning of the clock;
and, in a minute or two thereafter, the bell struck ten. Oh, but it was
a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap went through my breast like the
dunt of a fore-hammer.

Then up and spak the red-headed laddie:--"It's no fair; anither should
hae come by this time. I wad rin awa hame, only I am frighted to gang
out my lane.--Do ye think the doup of that candle wad carry i' my cap?"

"Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now.--Leave me alane?
Lord safe us! and the yett lockit, and the bethrel sleeping with the key
in his breek pouches!--We canna win out now though we would," answered I,
trying to look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses:--"Sit
down, sit down; I've baith whisky and porter wi' me. Hae, man, there's a
cawker to keep your heart warm; and set down that bottle," quoth I,
wiping the saw-dust affn't with my hand, "to get a toast; I'se warrant it
for Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout."

The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began to fall in
perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled and rowed, and made a sad soughing;
and the branches of the bourtree behind the house, where auld Cockburn
that cut his throat was buried creaked and crazed in a frightful manner;
but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and the bumming in the lum-
head, they were past all power of description. To make bad worse, just
in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its
rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought
of our both running away; and then of our locking ourselves in, and
firing through the door; but who was to pull the trigger?

Gudeness watch over us! I tremble yet when I think on it. We were
perfectly between the de'il and the deep sea--either to stand still and
fire our gun, or run and be shot at. It was really a hang choice. As I
stood swithering and shaking, the laddie flew to the door, and, thrawing
round the key, clapped his back to it. Oh! how I looked at him, as he
stood for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening with his lug cocked up, or
rather like a terrier watching a rotten. "They're coming! they're
coming!" he cried out; "cock the piece, ye sumph;" while the red hair
rose up from his pow like feathers; "they're coming, I hear them tramping
on the gravel!" Out he stretched his arms against the wall, and brizzed
his back against the door like mad; as if he had been Samson pushing over
the pillars in the house of Dagon. "For the Lord's sake, prime the gun,"
he cried out, "or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug before we can
cry Jack Robison! See that there's priming in the pan."

I did the best I could; but my whole strength could hardly lift up the
piece, which waggled to and fro like a cock's tail on a rainy day; my
knees knocked against one another, and though I was resigned to die--I
trust I was resigned to die--'od, but it was a frightful thing to be out
of one's bed, and to be murdered in an old session-house, at the dead
hour of night, by unearthly resurrection men, or rather let me call them
deevils incarnate, wrapt up in dreadnoughts, with blacked faces, pistols,
big sticks, and other deadly weapons.

A snuff-snuffing was heard; and, through below the door, I saw a pair of
glancing black een. 'Od, but my heart nearly louped off the bit--a
snouff, and a gur-gurring, and over all the plain tramp of a man's heavy
tackets and cuddy-heels among the gravel. Then came a great slap like
thunder on the wall; and the laddie, quitting his grip, fell down,
crying, "Fire, fire!--murder! holy murder!"

"Wha's there?" growled a deep rough voice; "open, I'm a freend."

I tried to speak, but could not; something like a halfpenny roll was
sticking in my throat, so I tried to cough it up, but it would not come.
"Gie the pass-word then," said the laddie, staring as if his eyes would
loup out; "gie the pass-word!"

First came a loud whistle, and then "Copmahagen," answered the voice. Oh!
what a relief! The laddie started up, like one crazy with joy. "Ou!
ou!" cried he, thrawing round the key, and rubbing his hands; "by jingo,
it's the bethrel--it's the bethrel--it's auld Isaac himsell."

First rushed in the dog, and then Isaac, with his glazed hat, slouched
over his brow, and his horn bowet glimmering by his knee. "Has the
French landed, do ye think? Losh keep us a'," said he, with a smile on
his half-idiot face, (for he was a kind of a sort of a natural, with an
infirmity in his leg,) "'od sauf us, man, put by your gun. Ye dinna mean
to shoot me, do ye? What are ye about here with the door lockit? I just
keppit four resurrectioners louping ower the wall."

"Gude guide us!" I said, taking a long breath to drive the blood from my
heart, and something relieved by Isaac's company--"Come now, Isaac, ye're
just gieing us a fright. Isn't that true, Isaac?"

"Yes, I'm joking--and what for no?--but they might have been, for
onything ye wad hae hindered them to the contrair, I'm thinking. Na, na,
ye maunna lock the door; that's no fair play."

When the door was put ajee, and the furm set fornent the fire, I gave
Isaac a dram to keep his heart up on such a cold stormy night. 'Od, but
he was a droll fellow, Isaac. He sung and leuch as if he had been
boozing in Luckie Thamson's, with some of his drucken cronies. Feint a
hair cared he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or
through-stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, with the wet grass
growing over them; and at last I began to brighten up a wee myself; so
when he had gone over a good few funny stories, I said to him, quoth I,
"Mony folk, I daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a
kirkyard than it's a' worth. There's naething here to harm us?"

"I beg to differ wi' ye there," answered Isaac, taking out his horn mull
from his coat pouch, and tapping on the lid in a queer style--"I could
gie anither version of that story. Did ye no ken of three young
doctors--Eirish students--alang with some resurrectioners, as waff and
wild as themsells, firing shottie for shottie with the guard at
Kirkmabreck, and lodging three slugs in ane of their backs, forbye firing
a ramrod through anither ane's hat?"

This was a wee alarming--"No," quoth I; "no, Isaac, man; I never heard of
it."

"But, let alane resurrectioners, do ye no think there is sic a thing as
ghaists? Guide ye, man, my grannie could hae telled as muckle about them
as would have filled a minister's sermons from June to January."

"Kay--kay--that's all buff," I said. "Are there nae cutty-stool
businesses--are there nae marriages going on just now, Isaac?" for I was
keen to change the subject.

"Ye may kay--kay, as ye like, though; I can just tell ye this:--Ye'll
mind auld Armstrong with the leather breeks, and the brown three-story
wig--him that was the grave-digger? Weel, he saw a ghaist wi' his
leeving een--aye, and what's better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a
cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in, whan he cam to the
yett yonder, thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock--but Jock had
sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he
gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o't,
he dug away with his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin
handles, and the green banes and sic like, till he stoppit a wee to take
breath.--What! are ye whistling to yoursell?" quoth Isaac to me, "and no
hearing what's God's truth?"

"Ou, ay," said I; "but ye didna tell me if onybody was cried last
Sunday?"--I would have given every farthing I had made by the needle, to
have been at that blessed time in my bed with my wife and wean. Ay, how
I was gruing! I mostly chacked off my tongue in chittering.--But all
would not do.

"Weel, speaking of ghaists--when he was resting on his spade he looked up
to the steeple, to see what o'clock it was, wondering what way Jock hadna
come, when lo! and behold, in the lang diced window of the kirk yonder,
he saw a lady a' in white, with her hands clasped thegither, looking out
to the kirkyard at him.

"He couldna believe his een, so he rubbit them with his sark sleeve, but
she was still there bodily; and, keeping ae ee on her, and anither on his
road to the yett, he drew his coat and hat to him below his arm, and aff
like mad, throwing the shool half a mile ahint him. Jock fand that; for
he was coming singing in at the yett, when his maister ran clean ower the
tap o' him, and capsized him like a toom barrel; never stopping till he
was in at his ain house, and the door baith bolted and barred at his
tail.

"Did ye ever hear the like of that, Mansie? Weel, man, I'll explain the
hail history of it to ye. Ye see--'Od! how sound that callant's
sleeping," continued Isaac; "he's snoring like a nine-year-auld!"

I was glad he had stopped, for I was like to sink through the ground with
fear; but no, it would not do.

"Dinna ye ken--sauf us! what a fearsome night this is! The trees will be
all broken. What a noise in the lum! I daresay there's some auld hag of
a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll
swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?" he bawled up the
chimney. "Ye'll hae heard," said he, "lang ago, that a wee murdered wean
was buried--didna ye hear a voice?--was buried below that corner--the
hearth-stane there, where the laddie's lying on?"

I had now lost my breath, so that I could not stop him.

"Ye never heard tell o't, didna ye? Weel, I'se tell't ye--Sauf us, what
swurls of smoke coming doun the chimley--I could swear something no
canny's stopping up the lum head--Gang out, and see!"

At that moment a clap like thunder was heard--the candle was driven
over--the sleeping laddie roared "Help!" and "Murder!" and "Thieves!"
and, as the furm on which we were sitting played flee backwards, cripple
Isaac bellowed out, "I'm dead!--I'm killed--shot through the head!--Oh!
oh! oh!"

Surely I had fainted away; for, when I came to myself, I found my red
comforter loosed; my face all wet--Isaac rubbing down his waistcoat with
his sleeve--the laddie swigging ale out of a bicker--and the brisk brown
stout, which, by casting its cork, had caused all the alarm,
whizz--whizz--whizzing in the chimley lug.




CHAPTER XI.--TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL.


In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old man dwells, a little man;
I've heard he once was tall.
A long blue livery coat has he,
That's fair behind and fair before;
Yet, meet him where you will, you see
At once that he is poor.

WORDSWORTH.

It was a clear starry night, in the blasty month of January, I mind it
well. The snow had fallen during the afternoon; or, as Benjie came in
crying, that "the auld wives o' the norlan sky were plucking their
geese;" and it continued dim and dowie till towards the gloaming, when,
as the road-side labourers were dandering home from their work, some with
pickaxes and others with shools, and just as our cocks and hens were
going into their beds, poor things, the lift cleared up to a sharp
freeze, and the well-ordered stars came forth glowing over the blue sky.
Between six and seven the moon rose; and I could not get my two prentices
in from the door, where they were bickering one another with snow-balls,
or maybe carhailling the folk on the street in their idle wantonness; so
I was obliged for that night to disappoint Edie Macfarlane of the pair of
black spatterdashes he was so anxious to get finished, for dancing in
next day, at Souple Jack the carpenter's grand penny-wedding.

Seeing that little more good was to be expected till morning, I came to
the resolution of shutting-in half-an-hour earlier than usual; so, as I
was carrying out the shop-shutters, with my hat over my cowl, for it was
desperately sharp, I mostly in my hurry knocked down an old man, that was
coming up to ask me, "if I was Maister Wauch the tailor and furnisher."

Having told him that I was myself, instead of a better; and having asked
him to step in, that I might have a glimpse of his face at the candle, I
saw that he was a stranger, dressed in a droll auld-farrant green livery-
coat, faced with white. His waistcoat was cut in the Parly-voo fashion,
with long lappels, and a double row of buttons down the breast; and round
his neck he had a black corded stock, such like, but not so broad, as I
afterwards wore in the volunteers, when drilling under Big Sam. He had a
well-worn scraper on his head, peaked before and behind, with a bit crape
knotted round it, which he politely took off, making a low bow; and
requesting me to bargain with him for a few articles of grand second-hand
apparel, which once belonged to his master that was deceased, and which
was now carried by himself, in a bundle under his left oxter.

Happening never to make a trade of dealing in this line, and not very
sure like as to how the old man might have come by the bundle in these
riotous and knock-him-down times, I swithered a moment, giving my chin a
rub, before answering; and then advised him to take a step in at his
leisure to St Mary's Wynd, where he would meet in with merchants in
scores. But no; he seemed determined to strike a bargain with me; and I
heard from the man's sponsible and feasible manner of speech--for he was
an old weatherbeaten-looking body of a creature, with gleg een, a cock
nose, white locks, and a tye behind--that the clothes must have been left
him, as a kind of friendly keepsake, by his master, now beneath the
mools. Thinking by this, that if I got them at a wanworth, I might
boldly venture, I condescended to his loosing down the bundle, which was
in a blue silk napkin with yellow flowers. As he was doing this, he told
me that he was on his way home from the north to his own country, which
lay among the green Welsh hills, far away; and that he could not carry
much luggage with him, as he was obliged to travel with his baggage tied
up in a bundle, on the end of his walking-staff, over his right shoulder.

Pity me! what a grand coat it was! I thought at first it must have been
worn on the King's own back, honest man; for it was made of green velvet,
and embroidered all round about--back seams, side seams, flaps, lappels,
button-holes, nape and cuffs, with gold lace and spangles, in a manner to
have dazzled the understanding of any Jew with a beard shorter than his
arm. So, no wonder that it imposed on the like of me; and I was mostly
ashamed to make him an offer for it of a crown-piece and a dram. The
waistcoat, which was of white satin, single-breasted, and done up with
silver tinsel in a most beautiful manner, I also bought from him for a
couple of shillings, and four hanks of black thread. Though I would on
no account or consideration give him a bode for the Hessian boots, which
having cuddy-heels and long silk tossels, were by far and away over grand
for the like of a tailor, such as me, and fit for the Sunday's wear of
some fashionable Don of the first water. However, not to part uncivilly,
and be as good as my word, I brought ben Nanse's bottle, and gave him a
cawker at the shop counter; and, after taking a thimbleful to myself, to
drink a good journey to him, I bade him take care of his feet, as the
causeway was frozen, and saw the auld flunkie safely over the strand with
a candle.

Ye may easily conceive that Nanse got a surprise, when I paraded ben to
the room with the grand coat and waistcoat on, cocking up my head,
putting my hands into the haunch pockets, and strutting about more like a
peacock than a douce elder of Maister Wiggie's kirk; so just as, thinking
shame of myself, I was about to throw it off, I found something bulky at
the bottom of the side pocket, which I discovered to be a wheen papers
fastened together with green tape. Finding they were written in a real
neat hand, I put on my spectacles, and sending up the close for James
Batter, we sat round the fireside, and read away like nine-year-aulds.

The next matter of consideration was, whether, in buying the coat as it
stood, the paper belonged to me, or the old flunkie waiting-servant with
the peaked hat. James and me, after an hour and a half's argle-bargleing
pro and con, in the way of Parliament-house lawyers, came at last to be
unanimously of opinion, that according to the auld Scotch proverb of

"He that finds keeps,
And he that loses seeks,"

whatever was part or pendicle of the coat at the time of purchase, when
it hung exposed for sale over the white-headed Welshman's little finger,
became, according to the law of nature and nations, as James Batter
wisely observed, part and pendicle of the property of me, Mansie Wauch,
the legal purchaser.

Notwithstanding all this, however, I was not sincerely convinced in my
own conscience; and I daresay if the creature had cast up, and come
seeking them back, I would have found myself bound to make restitution.
This is not now likely to happen; for twenty long years have come and
passed away, like the sunshine of yesterday, and neither word nor wittens
of the body have been seen or heard tell of; so, according to the course
of nature, being a white-headed old man, with a pigtail, when the bargain
was made, his dust and bones have, in all likelihood, long ago mouldered
down beneath the green turf of his own mountains, like his granfather's
before him. This being the case, I daresay it is the reader's opinion as
well as my own, that I am quite at liberty to make what use of them I
like. Concerning the poem things that came first in hand, I do not
pretend to be any judge; but James thinks he could scarcely write any
muckle better himself: so here goes; but I cannot tell you to what tune:



SONG.


I.

They say that other eyes are bright,
I see no eyes like thine;
So full of Heaven's serenest light,
Like midnight stars they shine.

II.

They say that other cheeks are fair--
But fairer cannot glow
The rosebud in the morning air,
Or blood on mountain snow.

III.

Thy voice--Oh sweet it streams to me,
And charms my raptured breast;
Like music on the moonlight sea,
When waves are lull'd to rest.

IV.

The wealth of worlds were vain to give
Thy sinless heart to buy;
Oh I will bless thee while I live,
And love thee till I die!

From this song it appears a matter beyond doubt--for I know human
nature--that the flunkie's master had, in his earlier years, been deeply
in love with some beautiful young lady, that loved him again, and that
maybe, with a bounding and bursting heart, durst not let her affection be
shown, from dread of her cruel relations, who insisted on her marrying
some lord or baronet that she did not care one button about. If so,
unhappy pair, I pity them! Were we to guess our way in the dark a wee
farther, I think it not altogether unlikely, that he must have fallen in
with his sweetheart abroad, when wandering about on his travels; for what
follows seems to come as it were from her, lamenting his being called to
leave her forlorn, and return home. This is all merely supposition on my
part, and in the antiquarian style, whereby much is made out of little;
but both me and James Batter are determined to be unanimously of this
opinion, until otherwise convinced to the contrary. Love is a fiery and
fierce passion everywhere; but I am told that we, who live in a more
favoured land, know vary little of the terrible effects it sometimes
causes, and the bloody tragedies, which it has a thousand times produced,
where the heart of man is uncontrolled by reason or religion, and his
blood heated into a raging fever, by the burning sun that glows in the
heaven above his head.

Here follows the poem of Taffy's master's foreign sweetheart; which,
considering it to be a woman's handiwork, is, I daresay, not that far
amiss.



SONG OF THE SOUTH.


I.

Of all the garden flowers
The fairest is the rose;
Of winds that stir the bowers,
Oh! there is none that blows
Like the south--the gentle south--
For that balmy breeze is ours.

II.

Cold is the frozen north;
In its stern and savage mood,
'Mid gales, come drifting forth
Bleak snows and drenching flood:
But the south--the gentle south--
Thaws to love the willing blood.

III.

Bethink thee of the vales,
With their birds and blossoms fair--
Of the darkling nightingales,
That charm the starry air
In the south--the gentle south,--
Ah! our own dear home is there.

IV.

Where doth Beauty brightest glow,
With each rich and radiant charm,
Eye of light, and brow of snow,
Cherry lip, and bosom warm;
In the south--the gentle south--
There she waits, and works her harm

V.

Say, shines the Star of Love,
From the clear and cloudless sky,
The shadowy groves above,
Where the nestling ringdoves lie?
From the south--the gentle south--
Gleams its lone and lucid eye.

VI.

Then turn ye to the home
Of your brethren and your bride;
Far astray your steps may roam,
But more joys for thee abide,
In the south--our gentle south--
Than in all the world beside.

After reading a lot of the unknown gentleman's compositions in prose and
verse, something like his private history, James Batter informs me, can
be made out, provided we are allowed to eke a little here and there. That
he was an Englisher we both think amounts to a probability; and, from
having an old "Taffy was a Welshman" for a flunkie, it would not be out
of the order of nature to jealouse, that he may have resided somewhere
among the hills, where he had picked him up and taken him into his
kitchen, promoting him thereafter, for sobriety and good conduct, to be
his body servant, and gentleman's gentleman. Where he was born, however,
is a matter of doubt, and also who were his folks; but of a surety, he
was either born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or rose from the ranks
like many another great man. That, however, is a matter of moonshine; we
are all descended in a direct line from Adam. Where he was educated does
not appear; but there can scarcely be a shadow of doubt, that he was for
a considerable while at some school or other, where he had a number of
cronies. In proof of this, and to show that we have good reasons for our
suppositions, James recommends me to print the following rigmarole
meditations, on the top of which is written in half-text,



SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS.


"--They who in the vale of years advance,
And the dark eve is closing on their way,
When on the mind the recollections glance
Of early joy, and Hope's delightful day,
Behold, in brighter hues than those of truth,
The light of morning on the fields of youth."

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