John Fiske - "The War of Independence"

E. Hermitte and G. Bodenbender - "Catalogo Instructivo de las Colecciones Mineralogicas"

Procopius - "Procopius"

Mark Akenside - "Poetical Works of Akenside"

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 Mermaid

L >> Lily Dougall >> The Mermaid




Caius held his horse as quiet as he could for some ten minutes, feigning
an immense interest in the occupation of the women; then leisurely
curvetted about, and set his horse at a light trot along the ice close
by the shore.

He rode hastily past the only place where he could have ascended the
bank, and after that he had no means of going home until he had rounded
the island and returned by the lagoon. The distance up to the end was
seven miles. Caius rode on under the lonely cliffs where the gulls
wintered, and threading his way upon smooth places on the ice, came, in
the course of not much more than an hour, up to the end of the cliffs,
crossed the neck of the sand-bar, and followed the inward shore till he
got back to the first road.

Now, on this end of the island very few families lived. Caius had only
been upon the road he was about to traverse once or twice. The reason it
was so little built upon was that the land here belonged entirely to the
farm of Madame Le Maitre, which stretched in a narrow strip for a couple
of miles from O'Shea's dwelling to the end of the island. The only point
of interest which this district had for Caius was a cottage which had
been built in a very sheltered nook for the accommodation of two women,
whose business it was to care for the poultry which was kept here. Caius
had been told that he might always stop at this lodge for a drink of
milk or beer or such a lunch as it could afford, and being thirsty by
reason of hard riding and ill-temper, he now tried to find the path that
led to it.




CHAPTER II.

ONCE MORE THE VISION.


When Caius turned up the farm road, which was entirely sheltered between
gentle slopes, the bright March sun felt almost hot upon his cheek. The
snow road under his horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy
slopes glistened with a coating of wet. He felt for the first time that
the spring of the year had come.

He was not quite certain where lay the cottage of which he was in quest;
and, by turning up a wrong path, he came to the back of its hen-houses.
At first he only saw the blank wall of a cowshed and two wooden
structures like old-fashioned dovecotes, connected by a high fence in
which there was no gate. Up to this fence he rode to look over it,
hoping to speak to the people he heard within; but it was too high for
him to see over. Passing on, he brought his head level with a small
window that was let into the wall of one of the hen-houses. The window
had glass in it which was not at all clean, but a fragment of it was
broken, and through this Caius looked, intending to see if there was any
gate into the yard which he could reach from the path he was on.

Through the small room of deserted hen-roosts, through the door which
was wide open on the other side, he saw the sunny space of the yard
beyond. All the fowls were gathered in an open place that had been
shovelled between heaps of hard-packed snow. There were the bright tufts
of cocks' tails and the glossy backs of hens brown and yellow; there
were white ducks, and ducks that were green and black, and great gray
geese of slender make that were evidently descended from the wild goose
of the region. On the snow-heaps pigeons were standing--flitting and
constantly alighting--with all the soft dove-colours in their dress. In
front of the large feathered party was a young woman who stood, basin in
hand, scattering corn, now on one side, now on another, with fitful
caprice. She made game of the work of feeding them, coquettishly
pretending to throw the boon where she did not throw it, laughing the
while and talking to the birds, as if she and they led the same life and
talked the same language. Caius could not hear what she said, but he
felt assured that the birds could understand.

For some few minutes Caius looked at this scene; he did not know how
long he looked; his heart within him was face to face with a pain that
was quite new in his life, and was so great that he could not at first
understand it, but only felt that in comparison all smaller issues of
life faded and became as nothing.

Beyond the youthful figure of the corn-giver Caius saw another woman. It
was the wife of O'Shea, and in a moment her steadfast, quiet face looked
up into his, and he knew that she saw him and did not tell of his
presence; but, as her eyes looked long and mutely into his, it seemed to
him that this silent woman understood something of the pain he felt.
Then, very quietly, he turned his horse and rode back by the path that
he had come.

The woman he had seen was the wife of the sea-captain Le Maitre. He said
it to himself as if to be assured that the self within him had not in
some way died, but could still speak and understand. He knew that he had
seen the wife of this man, because the old cloak and hood, which he knew
so well, had only been cast off, and were still hanging to the skirts
below the girlish waist, and the white cap, too, had been thrown aside
upon the snow--he had seen it. As for the girl herself, he had loved her
so long that it seemed strange to him that he had never known until now
how much he loved her. Her face had been his one thought, his one
standard of womanly beauty, for so many years that he was amazed to find
that he had never known before how beautiful she was. A moment since and
he had seen the March sunshine upon all the light, soft rings of curling
hair that covered her head, and he had seen her laughter, and the oval
turn of the dimpled chin, and within the face he had seen what he knew
now he had always seen, but never before so clearly--the soul that was
strong to suffer as well as strong to enjoy.

By the narrow farm-path which his horse was treading Caius came to the
road he had left, and, turning homeward, could not help coming in front
of the little cottage whose back wall he had so lately visited. He had
no thought but of passing as quickly as might be, but he saw O'Shea's
wife standing before the door, looking for him with her quiet, eager
eyes. She came out a few steps, and Caius, hardly stopping, stooped his
head to hear what she had to say.

"I won't tell her," said the woman; then she pleaded: "Let her be, poor
thing! Let her be happy while she can."

She had slipped back into the house; Caius had gone on; and then he knew
that he had this new word to puzzle over. For why should he be supposed
to molest the happy hours of the woman he loved, and what could be the
sorrow that dogged her life, if her happy hours were supposed to be rare
and precious? O'Shea's wife he had observed before this to be a faithful
and trusted friend of her mistress; no doubt she spoke then with the
authority of knowledge and love.

Caius went home, and put away his horse, and entered his small house.
Everything was changed to him; a knowledge that he had vaguely dreaded
had come, but with a grief that he had never dreamed of. For he had
fancied that if it should turn out that his lady-love and Madame Le
Maitre were one, his would only be the disappointment of having loved a
shadow, a character of his own creating, and that the woman herself he
would not love; but now that was not what had befallen him.

All the place was deserted; not a house had shown a sign of life as he
passed. All the world had gone after the seals. This, no doubt, was the
reason why the two women who had not cared for the hunting had taken
that day for a holiday. Caius stood at his window and looked out on the
sea of ice for a little while. He was alone in the whole locality, but
he would not be less alone when the people returned. They had their
interests, their hopes and fears; he had nothing in common with any of
them; he was alone with his pain, and his pain was just this, that he
was alone. Then he looked out further and further into the world from
which he had come, into the world to which he must go back, and there
also he saw himself to be alone. He could not endure the thought of
sharing the motions of his heart and brain with anyone but the one woman
from whom he was wholly separated. Time might make a difference; he was
forced to remember that it is commonly said that time and absence abate
all such attachments. He did not judge that time would make much
difference to him, but in this he might be mistaken.

A man who has depth in him seldom broods over real trouble--not at
first, at least. By this test may often be known the real from the
fanciful woe. Caius, knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance
of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep
on swimming. He took his horse's bits and the harness that had been
given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with
the utmost care, and at the same time with despatch. He had some
chemical work that had been lying aside for weeks waiting to be done,
and this afternoon he did it. He had it on his mind to utilize some of
his leisure by writing long letters that he might post when it was
possible for him to go home; to-night he wrote two of them.

While he was writing he heard the people coming in twos and threes along
the road back to their houses for the night. He supposed that O'Shea had
got home with the girls he had been escorting, and that his wife had
come home, and that Madame Le Maitre had come back to her house and
taken up again her regular routine of life.




CHAPTER III.

"LOVE, I SPEAK TO THY FACE."


Caius thought a good deal about the words that O'Shea's wife had said to
him. He did not know exactly what she meant, nor could he guess at all
from what point of view concerning himself she had spoken; but the
general drift of her meaning appeared to be that he ought not to let
Madame Le Maitre know where and how he had seen her the day before. In
spite of this, he knew that he could neither be true to himself, nor to
the woman he was forced to meet daily, if he made any disguise of the
recognition which had occurred. He was in no hurry to meet her; he hoped
little or nothing from the interview, but dreaded it. Next day he went
without his horse out to where the men were killing the seals upon the
edge of the ice.

The warm March sun, and the March winds that agitated the open sea, were
doing their work. To-day there was water appearing in places upon the
ice where it joined the shore, and when Caius was out with a large band
of men upon the extreme edge of the solid ice, a large fragment broke
loose. There were some hundred seals upon this bit of ice, which were
being butchered one by one in barbarous fashion, and so busy were the
men with their work that they merely looked at the widening passage of
gray water and continued to kill the beasts that they had hedged round
in a murderous ring. It was the duty of those on the shore to bring
boats if they were needed. The fragment on which they were could not
float far because the sea outside was full of loose ice, and, as it
happened, when the dusk fell the chasm of water between them and the
shore was not too broad to be jumped easily, for the ice, having first
moved seaward, now moved landward with the tide.

For two or three days Caius lent a hand at killing and skinning the
gentle-eyed animals. It was not that he did not feel some disgust at the
work; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well
help them. It was an experience, and, above all, it was distraction.
When the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative
joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters.
Caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he
partook, but they tasted good enough.

When he had had enough of the seal-hunt it took him all the next day to
cleanse the clothes he had worn from the smell of the fat, and he felt
himself to be effeminate in the fastidiousness that made him do it.

During all these days the houses and roads of the island were almost
completely deserted, except that Caius supposed that, after the first
holiday, the maids who lived with Madame Le Maitre were kept to their
usual household tasks, and that their mistress worked with them.

At last, one day when Caius was coming from a house on one of the hills
which he had visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to
this world, he saw Madame Le Maitre riding up the snowy road that he
was descending. He felt glad, at the first sight of her, that he was no
longer a youth but had fully come to man's estate, and had attained to
that command of nerve and conquest over a beating heart that is the
normal heritage of manhood. This thought came to him because he was so
vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an
interview with this lady--even holding her hand in his--and of his
ignominious repulse. In spite of the sadness of his heart, a smile
crossed his face, but it was gone before he met her. He had quite given
up wondering now about that seafaring episode, and accepted it only as a
fact. It did not matter to him why or how she had played her part; it
was enough that she had done it, and all that she did was right in his
eyes.

The lady's horse was walking slowly up the heavy hill; the reins she
hardly held, letting them loose upon its neck. It was evident that with
her there was no difference since the time she had last seen Caius; it
appeared that she did not even purpose stopping her horse. Caius stopped
it gently, laying his hand upon its neck.

"What is it?" she asked, with evident curiosity, for the face that he
turned to her made her aware that there was something new in her quiet
life.

It was not easy to find his words; he did not care much to do so
quickly. "I could not go on," he said, "without letting you know----" He
stopped.

She did not answer him with any quick impatient question. She looked at
the snowy hill in front of her. "Well?" she said.

"The other day, you know," he said, "I rode by the back of your poultry
farm, and--I saw you when you were feeding the birds."

"Yes?" she said; she was still looking gravely enough at the snow. The
communication so far did not affect her much.

"Then, when I saw you, I knew that I had seen you before--in the sea--at
home."

A red flush had mantled her face. There was perhaps an air of offence,
for he saw that she held her head higher, and knew what the turn of the
neck would be in spite of the clumsy hood; but what surprised him most
was that she did not express any surprise or dismay.

"I did not suppose," she said, in her own gentle, distant way, "that if
you had a good memory for that--foolish play, you would not know me
again." Her manner added: "I have attempted no concealment."

"I did not know you in that dress you wear"--there was hatred for the
dress in his tone as he mentioned it--"so I supposed that you did not
expect me to know who you were."

She did not reply, leaving the burden of finding the next words upon
him. It would seem that she did not think there was more to say; and
this, her supreme indifference to his recognition or non-recognition,
half maddened him. He suddenly saw his case in a new aspect--she was a
cruel woman, and he had much with which to reproach her.

"'That foolish play,' as you call it----" he had begun angrily, but a
certain sympathy for her, new-born out of his own trouble, stopped him,
and he went on, only reproach in his tone: "It was a sad play for me,
because my heart has never been my own since. I could not find out who
you were then, or where you hid yourself; I do not know now, but----"
He stopped; he did not wish to offend her; he looked at the glossy neck
of the horse he was holding. "I was young and very foolish, but I loved
you."

The sound of his own low sad tones was still in his ears when he also
heard the low music of irrepressible laughter, and, looking up, he saw
that the recollection which a few minutes before had made him smile had
now entirely overcome the lady's gravity. She was blushing, she was
trying not to laugh; but in spite of herself she did laugh more and more
heartily, and although her merriment was inopportune, he could not help
joining in it to some extent. It was so cheerful to see the
laughter-loving self appear within the grave face, to be beside her, and
to have partnership in her mirth. So they looked in each other's eyes,
and they both laughed, and after that they felt better.

"And yet," said he, "it was a frolic that has worked sorrow for me."

"Come," said she, lifting her reins, "you will regret if you go on
talking this way."

She would have gone on quite lightly and contentedly, and left him there
as if he had said nothing of love, as if their words had been the mere
reminiscence of a past that had no result in the present, as if his
heart was not breaking; but a fierce sense of this injustice made him
keep his hold of her bridle. She could weep over the pains of the poor
and the death of their children. She should not go unmindful that his
happiness was wrecked.

"Do you still take me for the young muff that I used to be, that you pay
no heed to what I say? I would scorn to meet you every day while I must
remain here and conceal from you the fact which, such is my weakness,
is the only fact in life for me just now. My heart is breaking because I
have found that the woman I love is wholly out of my reach. Can you not
give that a passing thought of pity? I have told you now; when we meet,
you will know that it is not as indifferent acquaintances, but
as--enemies if you will, for you, a happy married woman--will count me
your enemy! Yet I have not harmed you, and the truth is better at all
costs."

She was giving him her full attention now, her lips a little parted as
if with surprise, question plainly written upon her face. He could not
understand how the cap and hood had ever concealed her from him. Her
chief beauty lay, perhaps, in the brow, in the shape of the face, and in
its wreath of hair--or at least in the charm that these gave to the
strong character of the features; but now that he knew her, he knew her
face wholly, and his mind filled in what was lacking; he could perceive
no lack. He looked at her, his eyes full of admiration, puzzled the
while at her evident surprise.

"But surely," she said, "you cannot be so foolish--you, a man now--to
think that the fancy you took to a pretty face, for it could have been
nothing more, was of any importance."

"Such fancies make or mar the lives of men."

"Of unprincipled fools, yes--of men who care for appearance more than
sympathy. But you are not such a man! It is not as if we had been
friends; it is not as if we had ever spoken. It is wicked to call such a
foolish fancy by the name of love; it is desecration."

While she was speaking, her words revealed to Caius, with swift
analysis, a distinction that he had not made before. He knew now that
before he came to this island, before he had gone through the three
months of toil and suffering with Josephine Le Maitre, it would truly
have been foolish to think of his sentiment concerning her as more than
a tender ideal. Now, that which had surprised him into a strength of
love almost too great to be in keeping with his character, was the unity
of two beings whom he had believed to be distinct--the playmate and the
saint.

"Whether the liking we take to a beautiful face be base or noble
depends, madame, upon the face; and no man could see yours without being
a better man for the sight. But think: when I saw the face that had been
enshrined for years in my memory yesterday, was it the face of a woman
whom I did not know--with whom I had never spoken?" He was not looking
at her as he spoke. He added, and his heart was revealed in the tone:
"_You_ do not know what it is to be shut out from all that is good on
earth."

There came no answer; in a moment he lifted his eyes to see what
response she gave, and he was astonished to detect a look upon her face
that would have become an angel who had received some fresh beatitude.
It was plain that now she saw and believed the truth of his love; it
appeared, too, that she felt it to be a blessing. He could not
understand this, but she wasted no words in explanation. When her eyes
met his, the joy in her face passed into pity for a minute; she looked
at him quietly and frankly; then she said:

"Love is good in itself, and suffering is good, and God is good. I
think," she added very simply, as a child might have done, "that you
are good, too. Do not fear or be discouraged."

Then, with her own hand, she gently disengaged his from the bridle and
rode up the hill on her errand of mercy.




CHAPTER IV.

HOPE BORN OF SPRING.


"Love is good; suffering is good; God is good"--that was what she had
answered him when he had said that for her sake he was shut out from all
that was good on earth. His heart did not rebel so bitterly against this
answer as it would have done if he had not felt assured that she spoke
of what she had experienced, and that his present experience was in some
sort a comradeship with her. Then, again, there was the inexplicable
fact that the knowledge of the way in which he regarded her had given
her pleasure; that was a great consolation to him, although he did not
gather from it any hope for the future. Her whole manner indicated that
she was, as he supposed her to be, entirely out of his reach, not only
by the barrier of circumstance, but by her own deliberate preference;
and yet he was certain that she was glad that he loved her. What did
that mean? He had so seen her life that he knew she was incapable of
vanity or selfish satisfaction; when she was glad it was because it was
right to be glad. Caius could not unravel this, and yet, deep within
him, he knew that there was consistency in it. Had she not said that
love in itself was good? it must be good, then, both to the giver and
receiver. He felt a certain awe at finding his own poor love embraced
in such a doctrine; he felt for the first time how gross and selfish,
how unworthy, it was.

It was now the end of March; the snow was melting; the ice was breaking;
it might be three or four weeks before ships could sail in the gulf, but
it would not be longer. There was no sign of further outbreak of
diphtheria upon the island. Caius felt the time of his going home to be
near; he was not glad to think of leaving his prison of ice. Two
distinct efforts were made at this time to entertain him.

O'Shea made an expedition to the island of the picture rocks, and, in
rough kindliness, insisted upon taking Caius with him, not to see the
rocks--O'Shea thought little of them. They had an exciting journey,
rowing between the ice-floes in the bay, carrying their boat over one
ice fragment and then another, launching it each time into a sea of
dangers. They spent a couple of days entertained by the chief man of
this island, and came back again at the same delightful jeopardy of
their lives.

After this Mr. Pembroke took Caius home with him, driving again over the
sand-dune, upon which, now that the drifts had almost melted, a road
could be made. All winter the dunes had been absolutely deserted,
impassable by reason of the depth of snow. It would seem that even the
devil himself must have left their valleys at this time, or have
hibernated. The chief interest to Caius in this expedition was to seek
the hollow where he had seen, or thought he had seen, the band of
mysterious men to which O'Shea introduced him; but so changed was the
appearance of the sand by reason of the streams and rivulets of melting
snow, and so monotonous was the dune, that he grew confused, and could
not in the least tell where the place had been. He paid a visit to
Pembroke's house, and to the inn kept by the old maids, and then went
back to his own little wooden domicile with renewed contentment in its
quaint appointments, in its solitude, but above all in its nearness to
that other house in which the five women lived guarded by the mastiffs.

Caius knew well enough that these plans for his amusement had been
instigated by Madame Le Maitre. She was keeping out of his way, except
that now and then he met her upon the roads and exchanged with her a
friendly greeting.

The only satisfaction that Caius sought for himself at this time was an
occasional visit to O'Shea's house. All winter there had been growing
upon him a liking for the man's wife, although the words that he
exchanged with her were at all times few. Now the feeling that he and
she were friends had received a distinct increase. It was a long time
since Caius had put to anyone the questions which his mind was
constantly asking concerning Madame Le Maitre. Apart from any thought of
talking about the object of their mutual regard, it was a comfort to him
to be in the presence of O'Shea's wife. He felt sure that she understood
her mistress better than anyone else did, and he also suspected her of a
lively sympathy with himself, although it was not probable that she knew
more concerning his relation to Josephine Le Maitre than merely the fact
that it would be hard for any man to see so much grace and beauty and
remain insensible. Caius sat by this woman's hearth, and whittled tops
and boats for her children on the sunny doorstep when the days grew
warm at noon, and did not expect any guerdon for doing it except the
rest that he found in the proximity and occupation. Reward came to him,
however. The woman eyed him with more and more kindliness, and at length
she spoke.

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